A recent comment by Candy Minx introduces me to another word I don’t know: flaneur. Wikipedia sez it’s “a detached pedestrian observer of a metropolis, a ‘gentleman stroller of city streets’.” Reminds me a lot of reading blogs, with the ironic distance we keep; tracking memes, gossip, interesting stories, across a densely linked architecture of information, a metropolis of a new sort, perhaps.

The history of the term, perhaps, and I’m way out my depth here (hoping that by attempting to explain it naively I might somehow learn a little bit), connects to a time when pop culture was gaining relevance in contrast to “art” – something that was kept hidden away in galleries or museums or opera houses. The culture of the street being recognized as its own thing, and the emergence of a connoisseur for that culture. I’m sure you can draw a wobbly line from the flaneur to the trendspotter, although the motivations seem vastly different.

I pulled a page out of Newsweek a year ago, intending to do something with the article, anyway a year later, I finally get around to blogging Everything I Ate: A Year in the Life of My Mouth, mostly as Yet Another example of what I would call Inventory Porn (of which Taschen books might be a leading example) – if you go to some extreme length and document something (a big collection, all the stuff in your home, every manhole cover, gum wads, lost pet posters, bowling pins) at length, it becomes some publishable hipster NPR-reporting bloggable story.

It’s sort of the ultimate in DIY (or sorry, I mean User Created Content); anyone can seemingly visit every Starbucks in the US. Most won’t. But the person that does can get a book/movie/TV deal.

Some of these efforts are fun, some offer some insight, but others are just tedious. I might like to photograph the hotel doorknob of every room I stayed in over the last 3 years. Do you want to look at those pictures? What if I tell you engaging stories about each doorknob? Or each hotel? Or each trip? Well….maybe.

I admit it’s compelling to consume and create, but I’m also feeling a little burned out with this stuff. Perhaps it’s the lowbrow ethno vibe the whole thing gives off, that it’s an aesthetic and attitude of being into the details of consumption more than the implications or outcomes of the study (if it is even study; perhaps it’s just documentation).

I’m attending an interesting event next week. It’s a two-day summit on the topic of (as far as I can tell) what we want from our cities in the future. There’s an implied (to me) technological bias, but not any assumption that technology is good.

This is not a topic I feel very expert in, not even very well informed, or strongly opinionated about. Given the discussion-based slant the organizers are taking, this could be a risk, but I’m hoping that diving into the issues will unearth some perspectives on, well, living life in the spaces we live in, that I haven’t previously written or talked about.

Tipping the scales for me, therefore, to attend, are the facts that the event is free and local and especially that organizers/presenters include Eric Paulos and Matt Jones, two big-thinking design/culture/technology folks whom I admire.

This summit is part of a larger event going on in San Jose (electronic art, and presumably some other themes; I can’t really parse the details or remember the name of the conference without regular use of the web) – I won’t be part of that.

If you are attending the interactive city summit, let me know!

Life does imitate The Simpsons, or at least exhibit the absurditity so well captured by The Simpsons. First, while I’m all about avoiding waste and am brimming in admiration for cultures that use every part of the buffalo, it’s hard not to be a bit suspicious when the Dole Nutrition Institute goes to some great lengths to offer non-food (but hey, they are healthy) uses for Dole products.

For example, Banana Bread Head

Have a couple of bananas that have ripened beyond their prime? Don’t throw them away! Treat your hair to this vitamin-rich conditioning pack by blending a banana with a tablespoon or two of honey, plus a few drops of almond or vanilla extract for extra shine and a yummy fragrance that will remind you of mom’s fresh-baked banana bread.

Mix together banana, and honey in a blender. Wet hair with warm water and apply. For extra penetration, use plastic shower cap or wrap your hair with a towel. Wait about 20 minutes – perfect time to try the banana mask below – then rinse thoroughly, following with shampoo and conditioner as usual.

Mashed banana functions as a mucilage, much like aloe vera gel, protecting hair from environmental damage and smoothing frizzy flyaway hair. By bringing moisture to the surface of your scalp, this pack also serves as an excellent treatment for a dry, flaky scalp.

I’m going to be sick. I have been known to sport some fruity-smelling hair, but really, too much. Remember Steve Martin’s deodorant?

Tunafish Sandwich! I put a tunafish sandwich under each arm, one or two behind the ears… I don’t smell like any other guy! And it’s economical too, because the smell lasts for four or five days.

Dole also offers information on some other fresh fruit stuff to rub on yourself, including
* Lana’i Pineapple Body Scrub
* Strawberry Body Smoothie
* Indian Mangocado Body Polish
* Brown Sugar Jojoba Scrub
* Caribbean Conditioner
* Green Goddess Mask
* After-Beach Banana Mask
* Pi?±a Party Peel
* Good Morning Mask
* Papaya Peel
* Queen Bee Cleanser
* Green Tea Tonic

And elsewhere in Homer-esque food stuffs comes The Butter Trough, a restaurant in Atlanta that serves a strangely limited menu of bread, breadsticks, butter, and iced tea. It’s all free, thanks to advertising.

Finally, we serve you the absolute best and freshest supply of butter to be found in the region. Made from only organic minerals, The Butter Trough’s butter is made daily for your enjoyment. Twice hourly, the supply of butter in The Butter Trough is refilled. For your enjoyment, our farm clad employees slop the super heated butter into the butter trough so that you can enjoy it at its most liquid consistency.

The butter is made of minerals? Employees are “farm clad” and “slop” the butter into a trough? Damn right it better be free because who the hell would pay for this?

Don’t miss their catchy slogan “Friends. Fun. Food. Free.”

[via Mom; The Consumerist]

I’m psyched to see Chuck Klosterman (who I’ve gently raved about before) resurface (after SPIN) at Eqsuire, where he is writing of-the-moment (and sometimes controversial) stories about (pop) culture topics, such as The “Snakes on a Plane” Problem

I worked in newspapers for eight years, right when that industry was starting to disintegrate. As such, we spent a lot of time talking with focus groups, forever trying to figure out what readers wanted. And here is what they wanted: everything. They wanted shorter stories, but also longer stories. They wanted more international news, but also more local news. And more in-depth reporting. And more playful arts coverage. And less sports. And more sports. And maybe some sports on the front page.

When it comes to mass media, it’s useless to ask people what they want; nobody knows what they want until they have it. If studios start to view the blogosphere as some kind of massive focus group, two things will happen: The first is that the movies will become idiotic and impersonal, which is probably pre¬¨dictable. But the less predictable second result will be that many of those movies will still fail commercially, even if the studios’ research was perfect. If you asked a hundred million people exactly what they wanted from a movie, and you used that data to make exactly the film they claimed to desire, it might succeed. Or it might not. Making artistic decisions by consensus doesn\’t work any better than giving one person complete autonomy; both strategies work roughly half the time.

I don’t know that Klosterman is the next Gladwell; I hope he doesn’t get managed/edited into that role. He’s more about looking again at something we’ve all been looking at than in coming up with wild connections between things we didn’t know were related. And he’s (still) focused on telling stories, often about himself. The pop culture beat is an important one, and even though it shifts near-seamlessly into implications for marketing and business (umm, hello, this blog, case-in-point?), I hope Chuck can sit that part of it out and stick to what he’s done best (rather than entering the dark waters of populism that this piece focuses on).

I have no idea of Google Maps is in Beta or not, but man, is it broken. In Firefox and in IE, I can not print a map. It’ll generate a nice print preview with all the directions and so on, but the all-important IMAGE is absent. Argh.

Do you ever find yourself screwing around with some semi-working website (especially one you trust and expect to work, like Google) for a ridiculously long time, only to have to completely throw up your hands and go onto another method? It’s nice that it’s free and all, but what a waste of time! This used to work only recently. Very annoying!

An article on the recent Aryan Brotherhood convictions quotes Laurie Levenson, a professor at Loyola Law School/former federal prosecutor.”But the truth is, this (gang) is like a hydra – you cut off a limb and it’s going to grow back,” she said. “These guys have been around a long time and they’re going to get new leaders.”

But the Hydra had many heads, not many limbs. It was difficult/impossible to kill because the heads would grow back. That really breaks her metaphor! I’m sure the journalist just went with the quote anyway, as did the editor. Too bad.

In a brief but insightful entry on Wal-Mart’s withdrawal from the German market

And it’s culture. You’ve got to know your customer’s culture to give your customer a great experience.

I received a jar of sunflower seeds in the mail today, as part of some promotion for a market research company’s new website. Or so I think. It’s very confusing. The jar is filled with what seem to be “beer baked” sunflower seeds, with their own brand name, and the label alternates cheesy references to this brand and the different brands and URLs for the company. It’s a mess, it seems to have no relevance. Yeah, I looked at the website of the company (and I’m very deliberately not mentioning any specifics here because why give ’em the juice if they don’t really deserve it) but would I want to do business with them over a poorly executed gimmick?

I don’t know if this counts as a Purple Cow or not (supposedly a good marketing thing to do) but I find it strange and inappropriate, more than anything.

Returned home today to news that Devil’s Slide will re-open by 5 a.m., Friday, Aug. 4. This is fantastic! Four months after it closed, and 7 weeks earlier than estimated. I have felt pretty trapped in Montara, with poor access to San Francisco, and more planning required for out-of-town meetings and lunches and like. My colleagues have been understanding of the limitations, but it’s still hard not to feel marginalized by location. And I don’t even have a regular commute like so many others!

The Aug. 4 opening does not mean all repair work will be done by then. While work required to stabilize the road will be complete, drainage and electrical systems work will continue together with some erosion control into September.