The Practitioner

I got a great haircut today.

I mean, a great haircut. I look in the mirror and I think, "Wow. Why didn't I do this before?"

It's short, but not defiantly so. The part is right where it should be, and the top blends seamlessly into the sides of my rectangular head. It's the haircut of a lifetime.

And what's most remarkable is that the barber never once asked me how to cut it.

When he first started attacking the overgrowth in the back with his clippers without a word, I but looking for. It was only after he grabbed his scissors, oiled their hinges, and took the first crunching rip off the top of the mop that I was certain: he wasn't waiting for my input.

It was too late to protest by the time I awakened to reality. Anyways, there was something liberating about it, about not having to force a vague description of how I want my hair to look (it's a no-win scenario: too much demanding detail makes you a prima donna; not enough and you're likely to hear, "Then what are you here for?").

The barber snipped and pulled and clipped for about twenty minutes. His movements were sharp and decisive, brisk. When he was done we both knew that some serious work had just been done.

The whole experience set me to thinking about the practitioners among us, those men and women who practice a craft, a craft they have honed over years of experience. Like Angry Chef.
Angry Chef knows how your food should be prepared, and so he doesn't need to hear about the intricacies of your tastes. Because nobody should have the meat sauce on their pasta, even if they ask for it. The practitioner knows enough to be revolted at the very thought of it.

The barber didn't need my input to cut my hair because he could see what needed done. He was able to size up the boxy shape of my skull. assess the length of the locks, and cut until it looked right. Any direction I would have given would have only made his job more difficult.

So much of where our technological society is going is toward the tastes and interests of individual consumers. Take just about any product or service, and you can customize it however you want. The consumer is becoming the producer. That's the idea behind a blog, isn't it? And YouTube? And Wikipedia? Fast Food (ala Burger King's "Have it your way")? Indeed, the very idea of the "professional," the "expert," is being challenged on all fronts, from religion to politics to art to commerce.

But there remain those professional, expert practitioners among us. And they know that the collective intelligence of Wikipedia is a sorry substitute for the well-developed eye and the trained palate. To the practitioner, you can have it your way if you like. But you'd better not. You're better off letting the practitioner do it her way.

Because that's the right way.

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The Good Old Days (Part 2)

Back in January of 2006, NPH started a conversation about an initiative called One Laptop Per Child (OLPC).

Today we continue our review of blog highlights by revisiting that post. Find it here.

What made this post a highlight was the level of serious discussion it created among a number of different voices, including Ryno, Michael, and Stephanie.

*Update: read the Wikipedia entry about OLPC to learn more about the initiative's history, goals, and future.

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The Good Old Days (Part 1)

Yesterday's very civic-minded post scratched an itch that I haven't felt for awhile. It brought back the time when the subhead of this blog was "Media, Civitas, Ecclesia," three clearly delineated areas of focus that occupied my attention. Also, I used to write in the third person. That was fun.

Stroll down memory lane with me, and indulge me in re-living the high points of this blog's short brushes with greatness.

Here's a link to a post I wrote in June of 2006, lamenting the PC (USA)'s new television, print, and radio advertising campaign. The post itself is straightforward enough, and not that great. The real money comes in the discussion it generated between NPH and Landon.

Enjoy.

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Of Canines and Civics

Theolog has a post by Amy Frykholm about dog parks in which the author suggests that dog parks foster community in American neighborhoods in a way that nothing else at the present time does. She quotes Robert Putnam and the whole "Bowling Alone" argument that civic engagement in America is rapidly deteriorating. And while she anticipates that people of Putnam's persuasion will hardly be moved by what's on offer at the dog park, she's compelled to see in it something quite significant.

Here's a money quote:

Over the three years that [my friend] has been visiting the dog park, my friend has become close with a lesbian couple and their Scotch Terrier. They arrange meetings at the dog park and invite each other over for dinner. The dogs like each other, and gradually, the humans have gained each other’s trust. They ask each other for help when they need it; they invite each other to significant events. They’ve built a small, fragile community.

Trust. Reciprocity: these are two of the things that make up Putnam's ideal of "Social Capital." They're precisely the things that Frykholm sees emerging among the gaggle of mutt-lovers congregating daily in their fenced-in playpen.

Maybe I should get a dog.

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They'll Kick You And They'll Punch You And They'll Tell You It's Fair, So . . .

When he first told me to "beat it," I wasn't all that bothered. I had been trying to extricate myself from the table for what seemed like hours anyway, but his date just kept yammering on in a half-drunken Italian impersonation that was as embarrassing as it was insulting. So I was relieved at the sudden escape hatch, the wave of the hand granting express permission to leave the table and be done with it.

It was only after I related the dismissal to Pepe that it started to irk me. "That guy just told me to 'beat it'," I said, much in the same way that I might report someone asking for more bread. But Pepe's eyes widened at the news. His jaw slackened a little bit and his pupils took on an immediately sympathetic cast, and it was then that I started to feel the first gurglings of outrage.

That guy just told me to "beat it."

Besides top-hatted characters in 1920's musicals and Michael Jackson, besides mullet-headed toughs in 80's cop dramas, who talks like that? Who looks at another human being they hardly know and tells them to "beat it?"

What, "scram" was taken? "Shoo" not coming to the tip of the tongue? "Beat it?" Seriously?

The rest of the night is a blur of anger and self-loathing as I try to reconcile the depths of human indecency with the circumstances that have brought me to this place, where I, at 31, can be told to "beat it" by a complete stranger and not be bothered until someone tells me to.

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Windell Middlebrooks Update

If you've not seen the Dr. Pepper commercial with the dancing football player, you probably live under a rock (or you don't spend 6 + hours watching college football on Saturdays).

NPH favorite (and college classmate) Windell Middlebrooks stars in the spot, which I have failed to locate anywhere online. However, Dr. Pepper has created a MySpace page with a mini documentary about the commercial, complete with clips from Windell's casting audition, production shots, and the stunt double.

Enjoy it here.

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MLB Hot Corner

The baseball playoffs started today with both National League divisional series game one's and one of the American League divisional series game one. Others will blog about the games themselves; I'm interested in how to watch them.

TBS, the network that has broadcast the Atlanta Braves to a national cable audience for years, purchased the broadcast rights to these divisional series games. But if you don't have cable (or a TV for that matter), and you don't want to spend $20 at a drinking establishment to watch the games, how do you partake of this most hallowed rite of fall?

TBS launched an online component to their broadcast called The Hot Corner. It's a live broadcast, but not the game broadcast. There's no game audio, and the broadcast options include either the pitcher/catcher cam or the dugout cameras. Those are still shots that don't change. So of course, to watch the game, you use the pitcher/catcher angle. Only, whenever the ball is put in play, the camera doesn't move; it stays on the pitcher and catcher, so you're left to infer from their reactions what's going on. It's a bit like being that kid peeking through the slit in the fence to watch the game.

It's a step in the right direction, and I'm going to be watching it when I can. Hopefully we're not far from the time when an internet connection will allow you to watch a live broadcast of a game that's always being broadcast nationally. Currently, TBS, Fox, and ESPN don't allow online broadcasts of the games they're broadcasting, but how long can that last?

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