Gift Ideas: Late Stage Capitalism Edition
I saw a Bald Eagle this morning, as it soared over Timber Creek. The Crows were all in a tizzy, and two Black Ducks flew away in a panic. No photos, but I watched them through my monocular until a rambunctious labradoodle jumped on me. I’d met this dog before. A new puppy that a walker is trying to train Not To Do That and apparently failing. He got some pets, and his owner told me where the Bald Eagle’s nest is, behind a Sam’s Club. That’s also where The Clement Oak is hidden, near the site of the first air voyage in the Americas:
Lately, people who make their living being on television and telling us what to do have opined that people who are not delighted with this year’s U.S. election results have stopped watching them on TV to hear what they say we should do. Perhaps it’s because we’ve had eight years of both-sides bullshit and “sane-washing” where the President-Elect could eat a live baby in front of an audience and it would barely be news, and what would be news was anything bad for the current administration.1 I’m not ready for another round of “ooooh, did you hear what HE DID?” and zero consequences. The millionaires and billionaires who claim to be on our side sat this one out, unless they could charge a million bucks to show their face at a rally, because they’ll be fine. And they like watching us “get what we deserve.”
Some of us are taking our ball and going home, and they don’t like it. They want us to want them. They need us to need them. They’d love for us to love them, as Cheap Trick sang. Anyone familiar with bullies or narcissists has heard their serenade.
I stopped watching CBS Sunday Morning after thirty-plus years because it became an hour-long commercial for other Paramount properties. I gave it another shot this weekend, and I had to laugh at myself. One segment was about how billionaire cable news magnate Ted Turner is “giving back” somehow, by charging thousands of dollars for people to stay in the dozens of homes on the half-million acres of land he’s hoarded. I’m glad the obscenely rich man conserved the wildlife on that land instead of turning it into developments like others might, but why am I supposed to be thankful that this societal wart has told his children to make his land profitable, when they have more wealth than any family might possibly ever need? He’s dying of dementia, and yet must extract more wealth from the land. If he’d donated it all to American Prairie, or back to the people it was stolen from, that might be redemptive. Instead, he’s made it an exclusive hotel for the wealthy. Instead of this demented dying fool’s ethos, I’d rather focus on The Serviceberry by Robin Wall Kimmerer, who uses that fruit to explain the gift economy, not invented by rapacious landowners, but by nature itself, which keeps on giving as long as we’re not too greedy. Here’s a great review of it:
The next segment was on another rich man, Tom Colicchio. His book is entitled Why I Cook, which sounds like a monument to ego. Most people cook because you have to feed yourself and your family, if you have time after working to pay the landlords. But when you are a chef who can afford a private chef, or eat at restaurants for every meal, I guess it’s a deep philosophical question. He came from a working class Italian-American family, but says outright that home cooking is not what drove him; he had to work in a lot of bad kitchens and thought he could do better. Unlike Anthony Bourdain, who also did a lot of drugs, this guy lionizes the abusive kitchen workplace by judging others on Top Chef. How the hell did he get his start reading a Jacques Pépin cookbook? He obviously didn’t read anything but the recipes. If you need a cookbook, Jacques Pépin is still around, being delightful, and not abusing anybody.
Here’s another book you should read instead of some abusive celebrity’s mea culpa:
This writer had thought of the European colonization of the Americas as essentially inevitable in the long term, given the technological disparities and Eurasia-nurtured epidemic diseases. But Indigenous Continent persuaded me that it was a lot more complex and contingent than that. Sometimes, Indigenous Continent gives the feel of a history book from an alternate history, maybe a timeline where multiple Native American nations retained full sovereignty on their original homelands and the United States evolved a looser, multicultural, European Union-like format. It does this not by falsifying history, but by reversing the emphasis of “traditional” American history textbooks where Indigenous victories are portrayed as “speed bumps” to settler expansion, anomalous delays of the inevitable. The thing is, there actually were a bunch of really resounding and impressive Indigenous victories, and at several points it looked very possible that Indigenous peoples would retain control of substantially larger parts of the continent than they ended up doing! There’s a strong case to be made—and Indigenous Continent makes it persuasively—that at several key points in the history of North America, European colonies were essentially tributary states on the outskirts of Native American empires, providing guns, cloth, and metal tools in exchange for protection, food, and trade goods (for centuries, mostly beaver furs).
With the grand slam of Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Giving Tuesday, Empty Wallet Wednesday, and so on, I was very happy when the Native American Advancement Corporation who manage the Cohanzick Nature Preserve wrote to tell me to give something to myself instead of asking for more money:
That was refreshing. And there wasn’t even a donation link afterward! Nary a nudge-nudge-wink-wink. They talked to me like we are both adults! I’ll write more about that next week. For now, here are some “Upside-Down Charlies,” my favorite nickname for the White-Breasted Nuthatch, which would be a good drag queen name for a Birder. (Are there any drag queen birders? There’s Pattie Gonia, but they’re more of a general outdoorsy.) There are so many bird names that double as euphemisms, it seems a no-brainer.
If you need more birds in your life, Laura Erickson has a great newsletter. This is a Pileated Woodpecker roosting in winter sunlight, covering its head and beak for warmth.
If you need good news, once again, The Weekly Anthropocene focuses on GOOD climate news. They are a must-read for me.
Kent Peterson sent me this article on Grant Petersen, which might interest people who like riding bicycles. Petersen wants less focus on racing and competition and more on just getting out there and having fun, which is admirable. But in the spirit of capitalism, he sells three-thousand-dollar bikes made with hand-casted steel lugs. I’m sure they are awesome, and I kinda want one. Great respect that he sells $4 bandanas that are just plain cotton, but the cult of personality that arises in a culture where money has been declared speech by the highest law in the land means that he has to design and sell $120 pants, so that we can declare “we love anti-capitalism minimalism!” by spending our money on a plain pair of pants that are loose in the crotch, because finding clothing that’s comfortable, made of sustainable fibers, and not made by near-slave labor is a job in itself these days. So, I get it. I like what he’s doing, but any bike you can ride comfortably will do. If you like dirt trails, you might want fatter tires and a squishy soft saddle to protect your butt until you learn to stand up to absorb impacts, like you are riding a horse with your feet in the stirrups.
If you want to be subversive on a bike… I have a friend, the son of a friend, who lived on the streets for years. Or houseless, as some would say. He learned how to repair and tune bikes because that is what is affordable. He doesn’t have a business designing them, but if you want to ride, find a local bike shop that sells used, or ask around and find someone like him who repairs bikes and have them put one together from good but affordable parts. You don’t need carbon fiber. You need a comfy seat and brakes that work. And $1 billion in safe bicycling infrastructure, so you aren’t killed by a distracted or angry driver, but that’ll never happen now.
I haven’t recommended Kent’s newsletter in a while. There’s a lot to enjoy, but if you joined the Internet in the early ‘90s, his series of letters about his time working at Prodigy will give you an insight to what happened behind the scenes. Myself, I used Bulletin Board Systems and ISPs like Prodigy in the ‘80s, then Usenet and chatrooms in the ‘90s, and worked in I.T. after graduating college with an English degree. You can read a bit about my online adventures in “The Beast in Me.”
Sunday: Burros and Kitsch on Route 66.
Same thing with the latest pardon. A dying old man wants to protect his son from vultures. Not innocent, but he should have done it on day one and told them FAFO. The center Dems Neville Chamberlained themselves into this position by “going high” and have no one to blame but themselves.
Yeah! I loved this. I’m all fired up now. Also, sad to hear that about Sunday Morning. I haven’t had a TV in years, so I haven’t watched it in a long time, but I have fond memories of watching it with my dad and feeling like it was such a great start to the week.
Enjoyed this, Tom.