Robert David Sullivan

Menino vindicated on resistance to 311 phone line?

I was one of the people who criticized Boston Mayor Tom Menino, a notorious technophobe, for not adopting a simple 311 phone line for collecting residents' complaints about rats, noisy neighbors, potholes, missing street signs, etc. A 2008 Boston Globe article by Donovan Slack slammed Boston as being "far behind other cities such as New York, Chicago, Baltimore, and even Somerville and Hartford — and leaving untold numbers of citizen complaints by the wayside."

Critics of the city's complaint line were especially perplexed by Menino's refusal to change from a 10-digit number (617-635-4500) to the easily remembed 311. The complaint office was also understaffed (14, compared with 600 in New York), and behind other cities in acquiring software to track complaints. 

Top 100 sitcom episodes of all time, No. 93: "Seinfeld," Curb Your Enthusiasm

93. "Seinfeld," Curb Your Enthusiasm (2009)

Welcome to the “100 Best Sitcom Episodes of All Time,” a countdown for winter 2012. Each episode will get a separate blog post, counting backward toward No. 1.  A list of the programs revealed so far is here and an introduction to the project is here. 

Many of my favorite sitcom episodes are characterized by their hitting just the right tone before the closing music swells up, and that's certainly the case here, with Larry and Cheryl's reconciliation interrupted by his obsession with "respecting wood" (literal wood, not Big Bang Theory wood). If forgetting to use a coaster can break up friendships and marriages, I wonder if any wars have been started over rings on summit tables. 

This is one of the most tightly structured episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm. Though the dialogue still seems improvisational, there are stakes here (Larry's plan to win back Cheryl's affections by casting her in the Seinfeld reunion show), as opposed to the many episodes where misunderstandings simply pile up on one another. Not that there's anything wrong with those episodes...

Another theory on why Bill Keller thinks Twitter is icky

Last week I speculated that New York Times executive editor Bill Keller has a bias against social networking because the executive editor of the New York Times is too busy fending off people trying to kiss his ass to spend a lot of time on Twitter and Facebook.

I Hate the New York Times has another theory behind Keller's rant, which is that the Gray Lady simply hates all forms of fun enjoyed by normal people, such as cursing and going to flea markets. Of course, this strengthens rather than competes with my theory of of Dumontesque elitism.

...for every bizarre activity [New York Times writers] praise, there is another relatively harmless pastime they disparage.  Why?  Maybe it’s too lowbrow.  Maybe it’s because the fans of said pastime are presumed to be illiterate proles who don’t understand the consequences of their actions.  Or maybe it’s for the opposite reason — the pastime is question has gotten too popular with the hip, trend-chasing urbanites whom the writers fondly imagine comprise their core readership.  There must be something dangerous about it.

Big shots who don't need social media don't understand why us nobodies use it

My guess is that New York Times executive editor Bill Keller gets all his phone calls returned. I'll bet that he has party invitations for every night of the week and has strangers trying to get his attention at every conference room and cocktail bar he steps into. I don't think he means to brag about this, but that what he's doing when he wonders aloud why we need stuff like Twitter and Facebook:

The most obvious drawback of social media is that they are aggressive distractions. Unlike the virtual fireplace or that nesting pair of red-tailed hawks we have been live-streaming on nytimes.com, Twitter is not just an ambient presence. It demands attention and response. It is the enemy of contemplation. Every time my TweetDeck shoots a new tweet to my desktop, I experience a little dopamine spritz that takes me away from . . . from . . . wait, what was I saying?

My mistrust of social media is intensified by the ephemeral nature of these communications. They are the epitome of in-one-ear-and-out-the-other, which was my mother’s trope for a failure to connect.

I’m not even sure these new instruments are genuinely “social.” There is something decidedly faux about the camaraderie of Facebook, something illusory about the connectedness of Twitter. Eavesdrop on a conversation as it surges through the digital crowd, and more often than not it is reductive and redundant. Following an argument among the Twits is like listening to preschoolers quarreling: You did! Did not! Did too! Did not!

You're right, Bill. (You don't mind my using your first name, right?) There is something faux about Facebook, just like there's something phony about New York Times columns written in the first person. I'd much rather hear your views about social media in person, with an opportunity for meaningful discussion, than read your argument after it's been edited for New York Times house style and cut down to standard column length. (And I'll bet there are some great unprintable stories you can share on the subject, perhaps involving a Pulitzer Prize winner getting busted for "sexting" at a White House dinner.)

Kovacs revisited, Cambridge moms mocked, smartphone users ruin social gatherings

• Salon's Matt Zoller Seitz has a fun appreciation, with clips, of TV comedy pioneer Ernie Kovacs. Kovacs is certainly an acquired taste, in that you probably won't find him entertaining unless you already love TV/film comedy and are curious about the origins of many current techniques (such as David Letterman's habit of occasionally walking up to a camera and batting it like a cat would). Poet Percy Dovetonsils (at right), is one of Kovacs's sillier creations.

• Today's local Twitter craze: jokes about "prcmoms," otherwise known as People's Republic of Cambridge mothers. Best one so far, from @ideadrop: "Your mom is so Cambridge she got herself certified organic before she would breastfeed."

• Is it rude to keep looking at your smartphone while you're with other people? David Carr fretted about the phenomenon on Sunday in the New York Times, reporting that while he was at the SXSW conference in Austin, "The wait in line for panels, badges or food became one more chance to check in digitally instead of an opportunity to meet someone you didn’t know."

Andrew Sullivan gave an amen: "When you are actually among people you know, the act of glancing down at your mobile device is simply bad manners. It states absolutely that your current interaction is not as important or as interesting as any number of online connections."

But Kevin Drum sighs and accepts the practice as inevitable: "I will probably go to my grave thinking it's rude, but unlike Andrew, I long ago decided to simply live with it because it seems so obviously to be a value-neutral cultural change, not something intended to annoy people."

I do get annoyed by the practice, but I see it as part of the current fixation on multi-tasking, which most people are not nearly as good at as they think. If it bugs you that a dining companion is texting while trying to hold a conversation with you, it might help to think of that person walking into a lightpole, missing his train stop, or falling into an open sewer while focused on his Blackberry.

 

Is Louis Vuitton tempting the Barbra Streisand Effect?

Via Boing Boing: Luxury handbag maker Louis Vuitton wants the benefits but not the blowback from being a status symbol. As the blog Eyeteeth reports:

Dutch artist Nadia Plesner got in hot water with Louis Vuitton in 2008 for depicting an African child with one of its high-end bags on one arm and a chihuahua in the other (below) as part of her campaign urging divestment from Sudan over the conflict in Darfur. Now the company is suing her again: this time, the luxury goods company has filed a copyright infringement suit at The Hague that will penalize her 5,000 Euros for each day a likeness of its Audra bag in her painting Darfurnica remains on her website. The company has been tallying her penalty since Jan. 28.

Is this really worth the bad publicity for Vuitton? Surely it must realize that it's tempting the Barbra Streisand Effect, in which trying to suppress something only brings it more exposure.

Darfurnica (detail), Nadia Plesner, 2010

Why shy people cheer the death of the telephone

In one of its trend pieces that I hope to be true, the New York Times has declared that the telephone is falling out of favor. Pamela Paul makes the case:

“I literally never use the phone,” Jonathan Adler, the interior designer, told me. (Alas, by phone, but it had to be.) “Sometimes I call my mother on the way to work because she’ll be happy to chitty chat. But I just can’t think of anyone else who’d want to talk to me.” Then again, he doesn’t want to be called, either. “I’ve learned not to press ‘ignore’ on my cellphone because then people know that you’re there.”

“I remember when I was growing up, the rule was, ‘Don’t call anyone after 10 p.m.,’ ” Mr. Adler said. “Now the rule is, ‘Don’t call anyone. Ever.’ ”

Phone calls are rude. Intrusive. Awkward. “Thank you for noticing something that millions of people have failed to notice since the invention of the telephone until just now,” Judith Martin, a k a Miss Manners, said by way of opening our phone conversation. “I’ve been hammering away at this for decades. The telephone has a very rude propensity to interrupt people.”

I have a feeling that Paul, and most of her sources, are men and women with a healthy amount of self-confidence. That's because the article never hints at the biggest problem people like me have with the phone. It's not intrusiveness. In fact, my instrument (as Ernestine always called it) has never been busy enough for me to complain about it.

No, shy people hate the telephone for a simpler reason: You can't see how the person on the other end is reacting to what you're saying! If you have a lot of self-esteem, this isn't a problem (I'm guessing). You just assume that the other person wants to talk with you — or, in the occasional adversarial call, is afraid not to talk with you. Not seeing the person's face isn't a huge disadvantage, and it can even make things easier not to see him rolling his eyes or distracting himself by checking Facebook.

Blog and Twitter updates, begorra

It's St. Patrick's Day, one of three times a year that I avoid Boston bars (New Year's Eve and July 4 being the others), so I'll be doing literal and technological housecleaning today. (Besides, I'm only half-Irish, and my French-Canadian half insists on poutine to accompany any heavy drinking.) A few updates:

• I've started a second Twitter account, @HubStats, to focus on newsy data of interest to my Bay State and more stats-crazed followers. I'll still be tweeting my usual nonsense at @RobertDSullivan.
• I'm updating my "What Each State Does Best in Presidential Elections" post as I find new information and interesting stories about each state.
• My posts about television, which are cross-posted at Extra Criticum with different comment threads, have been a lot of fun to write, and I'm thinking of continuing the discussion of what makes a great sitcom episode. Any suggestions on specific shows to cover are appreciated!
• My posts about music, however, may be on hold for a while. The odd thing is that some of the posts get a lot of traffic (the one about Human Sexual Response's "Jackie Onassis" is the most-viewed item I've ever posted), but I think that's a function of search-engine luck rather than genuine interest. A lot of acquaintances have told me they just don't like them, and my layman's approach may not appeal to people who actually know a lot about music.
• I'm still on the lookout for work, which may lead to some entertainingly humiliating blog posts. But I'd also love to help a Boston-area nonprofit in genuine need of someone with writing/editing/proofreading/HTML skills. Nothing with mindless "busy work," though; that's what temp agencies are for.

 

Banned for life from Salon.com? Plus, Simpsons and Monty Python

Cross-posted at Extra Criticum.

I seem to be banned for life from posting comments on Salon.com because of a typo. The site requires you to set up an account (another password!) in order to submit a comment, but when I tried I mistakenly typed "con" instead of "com" at the end of my email address. So Salon sent a confirmation email to a nonexistent address and now won't let me set up another account because there's already a pending account with my user name (and ISP address, presumably). What a fate: trapped on Salon's No Fly List.

Wait, will "No Fly List" mean anything to someone reading this 50 years from now, as I expect millions of people to do? The Salon article I wanted to comment on, by Matt Zoller Seitz, asks "Will Future Generations Understand The SImpsons"? Seitz looks at TV comedies with topical references — not just The Simpsons, but Community, 30 Rock, etc. — and asks whether they will hold up for future generations:

Some of the most buzz-worthy TV comedies of the last 25 years have proved as sturdy as tissue paper. Even the great ones from the '90s ("The Simpsons" and "Seinfeld") are starting to seem as era-specific as high-top fades and Koosh Balls. "I Love Lucy," "The Andy Griffith Show," "The Mary Tyler Moore Show," "Cheers" and other pre-'90s sitcoms didn't start to seem dated or irrelevant for decades, probably because they kept the pop culture references to a bare minimum; the more recent hit comedies are starting to exude that expired fish stench while they're still on the air.  Can a show still call itself a comedy if you have to explain why it's funny?

We don't know which shows will hold up 25 years from now, but I wouldn't rule out the ones with pop culture references. One piece of evidence in their favor is Monty Python's Flying Circus, which found an audience in the US despite frequent references to British places and personalities that were alien to Americans from the start. As Monty Python members found to their surprise, Americans found a lot of the references to be funny just because they sounded funny. (While watching the show as an adolescent, the town of Luton and the politician Reginald Maulding struck me as hysterical even though I had never heard of them before.)

I suspect that some pop culture references will resonate because they sound funny, whether they're real or made up. The Simpsons and 30 Rock, in particular, seem to alternate between "real" cultural references and ones made up for their own universes, and neither group is inherently funnier than the other. (MILF Island is funny even if you don't know what it's making fun of; it just becomes surreal rather than a parody.) In contrast, the sitcom Murphy Brown, which liked to lazily name-drop politicians and journalists of its time, doesn't hold up very well at all.

Do you think all of the current "meta" comedies will age well? Will I Love Lucy still be popular when The Simpsons is forgotten?

 

Blog update, Twitter time

I haven't been posting a lot this week because I've been working on some post-election analysis, which will appear both here and at CommonWealth.

I've also been playing a lot with Twitter, under the name @RobertDSullivan. Many of you are probably horrified at the prospect of adding yet another time-waster to Facebook, LinkedIn, RSS feeds, etc., but I find Twitter useful for getting breaking news (especially local stuff), finding great stories from different sources without having to visit hundreds of websites, and networking with people who aren't yet close enough acquaintances for Facebook.

I also figured out how to post tweets hours or days in advance. So if I tweet a tasteless joke about someone who has just died, it might be a Jim Davis-type accident. And if you see a tweet going up at about the same time I die in a car accident, rest assured that I probably did not spend my last moments typing something snarky about Sarah Palin.

The tweets of October

You don't spend all your time checking Twitter? Here's a sampling of what you missed during the last three weeks of October. Please forgive the self-promotion...

@dankennedy_nu

Why are Larry King's ratings even lower than Parker Spitzer? My guess: suicides during Parker Spitzer. http://bit.ly/azMmLJ 13 Oct

jimmy_wales

This is the most awesome image in a Wikipedia article, ever: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_page. 14 Oct

RobertDSullivan

I'm going out on a limb to say that independents may be key in this year's elections. And the middle of a bridge is key to it staying up. 15 Oct

Top 15 blog posts of 2010 (so far)

Here are the 15 most-viewed posts on my blog during the first 10 months of the year.

1. Jump-the-shark moments: 14 and 10 more

This was my response to Boston Globe critic Matthew Gilbert's list of moments that signaled the decline of certain TV series. 

 

2. Bernstein on Menino: The proof is in the sourcing

A hat tip to Phoenix's David Bernstein for his article on why Boston may not be the political epicenter it likes to think it is.

 

3. Topics of conversation from my weekend in Provincetown and Truro

Not necessarily this summer's A-list agenda, but fun nevertheless.

 

4. A self-indulgent sabbatical

Some reasons why I went rogue this summer and returned to freelance life.