The social fart

If there is one place that is completely impersonal in urban life, it’s the elevator. There is one simple rule: two is eye contact, three is a frown. Part one of the rule addresses one specific context: if person A is in the elevator and person B walks in it is OK to acknowledge each other's presence with eye contact and the optional head nod. Part two limits the nature of this interaction: if person C comes in, it is proper etiquette to look down at your shoes. If you are feeling particularly social you can look at someone else’s shoe. The more people there are the less likely the chance of eye contact. In the crowded elevator this morning, (its Monday… I know) I was looking at my shoes and thought… this is ridiculous… I looked up to find the other occupants either looking down or at the ceiling. The ceiling? That’s brilliant… shoes get kind of mundane after a while, especially in the winter when your toes are not visible.

The only superstars in the cold cold elevator world are dogs. In a crowded elevator, everybody will look at a dog and someone might even say “what kind of dog is it?” or “what’s his name?” And it becomes like a mini-party in the elevator…

The only other option to instigate some sort of social interaction is the fart. I have thought of this on a few occasions, because whenever there is a strange smell in an elevator things get interesting. Everybody acts casual but subtly looks up and shifts their eyes from side to side trying to figure out who the culprit is. It’s like a murder mystery… everybody is a suspect. If the farter is a skilled criminal he will also look disgusted to hide his guilt. In this case, it is advised to use the "smell gradient". Does it smell more like fart on my right or my left. This helps eliminate suspects.

Enjoy your next elevator ride!

Please Comment!!!

I just realized I had the comments section set to "users only". Now anybody can comment.

For me, the most satisfying thing about writing this blog is the comments and discussions it generates.

Vedanta

I recently stumbled upon the works of Alan Watts, a British philosopher, writer, speaker and guru of comparative religion. He essentially spent different parts of his life learning about all the major religions. His biography includes zen training, a Masters in Christian theology and a stint as a Episcopalian priest. He is best known for his interpretation and explanation of Asian philosophies to the Western world. Reading one of his most well know books (The Book - On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are) I came across an interesting concept I wanted to share: Vedanta. Vedantic philosophy is based on any single book and has 2 simple postulations:

1- Human nature is divine
2- The aim of human life is to realize that human nature is divine

Based on Watts’ book this is my understanding of this philosophy. Everything in the universe that we define has an opposite because without day there is no night, no mountain top if there is no valley, no space if there are no objects. In a nutshell, you would not know what light was if there was no dark. This is the same as the yin-yang concept in Chinese philosophy.
There is however one concept with no counterpart: God. I am choosing the word “God” because I speak English, but this is in no way the same God as Christianity. This is the concept of “God” which encompasses all of creation, the Self of the universe. In this context, God cannot be described since there is no counterpart. Thus, to this extent EVERYTHING is god: you, me the laptop you are using, oxygen molecules, etc. Watts uses a childish analogy to explain this concept: it’s as if God was playing hide and seek with himself through all of his creations: humans, stars, animals, plants, etc. God does this so well that he does not remember doing this and it takes time to remember. Ultimately, one day we will all wake up, stop pretending and realize we are all the same universal self. So when good or bad happens, it’s always “self-inflicted” by the Universal self.

I won’t complicate things with more details. I just thought this concept was pretty mind blowing. It reminds me of another concept I read awhile back which says that since the whole universe is made up of the same matter/atoms/energy, it is all one giant unity. We are a part of it, indistinguishable.

Have a good weekend my atom-brothers...

Funky bones

Listening to a BBC podcast about Beatemania in the USSR, I came across an interesting historical tidbit. Apparently most countries in Eastern Europe and in the USSR were denied access to Western music. However, some vinyl records were smuggled across the “Iron Curtain” and made it into the hands of some crafty bootleggers who distributed it illegally to the masses. Since the 1950’s and 60’s were tough economically for the USSR, bootleggers had to find cheap accessible materials on which to make copies of the original vinyl records. After some experimentation it became apparent that discarded x-ray films from hospitals were the best and most freely available material for pressing bootleg records. So imagine buying a Beatles record from a bootlegger, going home and taking it out of its package. You take the record, put it up against the light and you are looking at some stranger’s ribcage. Maybe I am morbid kind of guy, but that’s pretty damn cool…

Toronto Vs Montreal: Skyline edition

When I first moved to Toronto, the first thing to hit me was the overwhelming number of impressive skyscrapers. Although there is a cluster of massive financial buildings downtown, there are also hundreds of towering condo buildings throughout the rest of the city. Sure big buildings block the sun and create mysterious wind tunnels that make cold days even colder, but I do enjoy a good skyline.

The skyline is a good indicator of a city's status. Montreal has Place Ville Marie and... Well there aren't very many that go beyond 25 floors. This is quite telling of Montreal's economic stagnation. All of our skyscrapers are quite old and there have not been any projects affecting the skyline since 1980. Montreal has not degraded economically in the last 3 decades per se however nobody is pumping money into the city. This is most likely a consequence of the rise of the sovereignty movement culminating in the 1980 referendum. This caused several companies to move their headquarters to the more stable city of Toronto. Toronto got the “big boy” status and the big buildings...

Although skyscrapers are impressive at first glance, they tend to ruin the city at the street level. Skyscrapers generally have a spacious lobby and elevators on the ground floor. This reduces the amount of restaurants, shops and bars that pedestrians can access. This unfortunate side effect saps the charm and practicality away from clusters of skyscrapers.

I have noticed something else in the last year: Toronto city planners have terrible taste in architecture. If the buildings are impressive in size, they rarely are in their design. Everything Toronto has built since their expansion in the 70's is quite awful. The city hall is supposed to be designed like an eye (top picture)... it might look good from a hot air balloon, not from the ground. The back of city hall is brown cement! More recently, the royal Ontario museum reopened on Bloor Street which is supposed to be avant-garde/crystal-like, but it just looks like it's been chewed up and spit out by Godzilla (bottom picture).

Montreal is a much older city, so the oldest buildings really give the city its charm. This is true for most cities I’ve visited: the older the city, the more charming it is. However, having travelled to cities such as Lisbon, Porto and Chicago it has become clear that new buildings can also have style. Therefore if anybody reading this is a struggling architect... please come to Toronto, the city needs you.

Montreal vs. Toronto: Street Meat Edition

On February 9th it was the one year anniversary of my move to Toronto. I will post a series of articles giving my two cents on the major differences between the two cities.

Let’s start somewhere random: street meat. For those unfamiliar with downtown Toronto, it is impossible to walk more than two blocks without being enticed or assaulted (depends on hunger) with the smell of hot-dogs. Every few blocks a small metal booth is visible. These plastic tarp-sheltered booths typically contain a propane grill, various condiments and a hard working immigrant trying to satisfy his customers’ need for sausage.

The glistening “street meat” served by the vendors is tasty although a little disappointing. I don’t think I ate more than 1 or 2 in my first year in Toronto. They seem to be a perfect end to a night of drinking and dancing! Since I don’t frequent clubs anymore, this might be responsible for my low sausage intake. To be honest I would trade all the hot dog stands in Toronto for a decent falafel or shawarma sandwich. Nothing but disappointment in terms of Arabic food in Toronto… I miss Lebanese immigrants!

What's the value of Money?

These days, with the US printing money like Wal-Mart flyers, it makes you wonder what the global monetary system is based on. With the words “speculative bubble” popping up everywhere it makes you wonder if money itself is simply a giant speculative bubble!

For those not familiar with the term, speculative bubbles refer to any market (such as telecoms, real-estate, food, oil) where values are driven up beyond their actual worth by investments. It’s a supply and demand of a supply and demand! During the dot com boom, telecom companies were thriving (high demand) and this attracted a lot of investors trying to get a piece of the pie (high demand). This additive effect drove up stock prices beyond the actual value of the companies. Once the honeymoon period is over (bubble bursts), there is a rapid decrease in the market’s value and it becomes undervalued due to a loss of confidence.

This also happened in the summer of 2007 with record high food prices and in 2008 with the 140$ barrel of oil. This is most likely going to happen with gold now that the economy is in shambles. To go back to my original point: the US can ultimately print as much money as it wants even though its gold reserves stay the same. This begs the question… what decides money’s true value. Why is the US dollar worth specifically 1.21857 Canadian dollars or 0.76525 Euros today? This is all very speculative isn’t it? Financial experts have pretty much shown in the last 30 years that they honestly have no real sense of a market’s true value. How true are those monetary exchange values quoted? What happens when that bubble bursts?

Same name new gimmick

I am about to try something a little different: Shorter articles twice a week.

Come back later today for the first new article.