Extroverts vs Introverts

Isaac Newton

Prior to lockdown, I probably would have objected on some level to the introvert-extrovert dichotomy. After all, it seems greatly oversimplified, given the wide variety o personalities in the world.

But watching people react to lockdown has been very interesting, and I have concluded that some people really do lean toward intro- or extraversion.

The introverts have reported–aside from sensible worries about the virus–feeling better during lockdown. I’ve talked to a couple of people who reported feeling relieved that they didn’t have to go in to jobs they disliked, and others who found being inside for a week surprisingly pleasant.

Most of the people I’ve talked to, however, found quarantine immediately and intensely awful.

Note: This post is not about anyone suffering from real harm during lockdown, like inability to earn money they need to eat. This is only about the stress people feel when unable to get together with friends or generally go out among others.

I’ve now heard that depressives should not self-isolate about a dozen times. Being alone is bad, my friends tell me. I’ve always had my doubts about this. What is so bad about having a little time to myself, to browse the internet or read a book? Of course, I live with my family, so I barely get to be alone in the bathroom–maybe we all want what we don’t have. But at least within the level of quarantine we have, not having left the house in weeks, we have been fine.

I think the difference, at least for some people, stems from the origin of our own source of happiness and self-worth. If you get most of those emotions from within, or from hobbies that you can easily carry on at home (like reading or growing bonsais,) then being cut off from other people can be frustrating, but you’ll be okay. By contrast, if you really don’t produce those emotions for yourself (perhaps due to some glitch you can’t,) then you are more likely to seek them out in others. If your access to other people is suddenly cut off, then you’re in quite the bind: you can no longer access positive feelings.

Most of the time, extroverts seem happy and introverts seem like depressives, and that may be true for many of them (notably, depressed extroverts may fail to go out, making them look like introverts). But I propose a sub-type of extroverts who find time alone intolerable because they are really quite unhappy inside. By contrast, introverts may not share the effusive, bubbly style of extroverts, but that does not mean they are not feeling positive emotions–they just do not feel the need to convey those emotions to others. (And as far as depressed introverts, well, I don’t know if going around more people would make the situation better or worse.)

It is tempting to criticize people for being unable to generate their own positive feelings, but remember that man is a political–ie, social–animal. Our natural state is to live in bands and troops, same as our cousins the chimps, bonobos, and gorillas. We are supposed to want to be around each other, and it is normal for us to feel great distress if we are alone, which is why solitary confinement is so bad:

Solitary confinement has received severe criticism for having detrimental psychological effects^[4] and, to some and in some cases, constituting torture.^[5] According to a 2017 review study, “a robust scientific literature has established the negative psychological effects of solitary confinement”, leading to “an emerging consensus among correctional as well as professional, mental health, legal, and human rights organizations to drastically limit the use of solitary confinement.”^[6] …

Research surrounding the possible psychological and physiological effects of solitary confinement dates back to the 1830s. When the new prison discipline of separate confinement was introduced at the Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia in 1829, commentators attributed the high rates of mental breakdown to the system of isolating prisoners in their cells. … Prison records from the Denmark institute in 1870 to 1920 indicate that staff noticed inmates were exhibiting signs of mental illnesses while in isolation, revealing that the persistent problem has been around for decades.^{[8] …}

According to the Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, solitary confinement can cause an array of mental disorders, as well as provoke an already existing mental disorder in a prisoner, causing more trauma and symptoms. …

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Human Rights Watch created a report that incorporated the testimony of some juvenile inmates. Many interviews described how their placement in solitary confinement exacerbated the stresses of being in jail or prison. Many spoke of harming themselves with staples, razors, even plastic eating utensils, having hallucinations, losing touch with reality, and having thoughts of or attempting suicide – all this while having very limited access to health care.^{[10]:29–35 …}

As well as severe and damaging psychological effects, solitary confinement manifests physiologically as well. Solitary confinement has been reported to cause hypertension, headaches and migraines, profuse sweating, dizziness, and heart palpitations. Many inmates also experience extreme weight loss due to digestion complications and abdominal pain. Many of these symptoms are due to the intense anxiety and sensory deprivation. Inmates can also experience neck and back pain and muscle stiffness due to long periods of little to no physical activity. These symptoms often worsen with repeated visit to solitary confinement.^[11]

Keep in mind that the alternative to solitary is being around a bunch of criminals, people not generally thought to be terribly pleasant companions.

Of course, some people prefer to be alone. Some people prefer to be with others. If you’re having a rough time in quarantine, well, at least you’re not alone (metaphorically, at least).

Stay safe, stay healthy, and see if you can invent some new math while you’re stuck inside.

 

Why do People believe wrong things, pt 2

Today’s post is a compare and contrast between articles. From Erin O’Donnell’s interview with Elizabeth Bartholet we have “The Risks of Homeschooling,” and from Michelle Malkin we have “What will it take to stop Google’s Kiddie Predators?”

I picked these articles because they hail from opposite ends of the political spectrum (so we needn’t get caught up in blaming one particular side,) but both deal with potential harms to children. Children, of course, are very precious and people are naturally inclined to protect them, so the thought that someone out there is harming them is deeply motivating.

Alas, both of these articles are, if you know anything about the subject in question, absolutely terrible.

On Homeschooling:

Yet Elizabeth Bartholet, Wasserstein public interest professor of law and faculty director of the Law School’s Child Advocacy Program, sees risks for children—and society—in homeschooling, and recommends a presumptive ban on the practice. Homeschooling, she says, not only violates children’s right to a “meaningful education” and their right to be protected from potential child abuse, but may keep them from contributing positively to a democratic society. …

… Only about a dozen states have rules about the level of education needed by parents who homeschool, she adds. “That means, effectively, that people can homeschool who’ve never gone to school themselves, who don’t read or write themselves.”

And from Malkin:

Last spring, Google reported at an education conference that it had started making its cloud platform program accessible to K-12 school districts. Evergreen, Washington, public schools chief Derrick Brown (right) bragged about his district’s data-mining pilot program with Google. “We have tons of data in our school districts,” he is quoted outlining in Education Week,citing information gathered through “student information systems, instructional software programs, online surveys of children’s social-emotional well-being, and special-needs students’ individualized education plans.”

“All that data needs to go in a container,” Brown explained. And that container will be Google Cloud Platform. Now, imagine questionnaires and tests stored in the G-container measuring “social-emotional well-being” of children and their families according to politically correct ideology. Imagine being a parent who objects to mandatory vaccine laws or who holds “America first” views deemed “extremist” and “hateful” or who stores guns responsibly in your home—information that is not the business of a school district or Silicon Valley giant. Where’s the protection for such families? What’s the academic justification for gathering it?

Before we go on, I should probably go into a little depth on what, exactly, makes both of these articles terrible.

Batholet wants to ban homeschooling entirely. This is absurd on its face–no matter how many problems you think there are with homeschooling (like anything, there are of course some), there are also clearly times and places when homeschooling is the best possible option, like literally right now, because I’m writing this in the middle of the Covid pandemic. There are kids who homeschool because they were bullied in regular schools, or because they have chronic illnesses that make regular school days difficult, or because they just plain learn better at home, and all of these kids have an obvious right to carry on doing things that are good for them.

It is quite easy to propose legislation that allows children to homeschool while also protecting them against the kinds of abuses Batholet cites–there is no reason to hurt all of the other kids in the process.

Furthermore, since schools are controlled primarily at the state level, banning homeschooling across the nation would require a massive amount of legal coordination. The Federal government could threaten to withhold funds to states that allow homeschooling, but this would be a practical disaster with states like Texas and Montana. It’s a bit ridiculous for anyone with any knowledge of US law (let alone a law professor) to propose something this far from legal reality.

Batholet is concerned about the quality of education homeschooled kids receive, which is rather precious given that homeschoolers consistently out-perform public schooled kids on standardized tests, eg, Academic Achievements and Demographic Traits of Homeschoolers:

Is it possible for adults without specialized, university-level training in teaching to help their children learn what they need to learn? Numerous studies by dozens of researchers have been completed during the past 25 years that examine the academic achievement of the home-educated (see reviews, e.g., Ray, 2000, 2005; 2009b). Examples of these studies range from a multi-year study in Washington State (Wartes, 1991), to other state-specific studies, to three nationwide studies across the United States (Ray, 1990, 1997, 2000; Rudner 1999), to two nationwide studies in Canada (Ray, 1994; Van Pelt, 2003).

In most studies, the homeschooled have scored, on average, at the 65th to 80th percentile on standardized academic achievement tests, compared to the national school average of the 50th percentile (which is largely based on public schools). A few studies have found the home educated to be scoring about the same or a little better than public school students. …

Research shows that the large majority of home-educated students
consistently interact with children of various ages and parents outside their immediate family (see, e.g., Medlin, 2000; Ray, 1997, 2009b).

The second part of the socialization question asks whether home-educated children will experience healthy social, emotional, and psychological development. Numerous studies, employing various psychological constructs and measures, show the home-educated are developing at least as well, and often better than, those who attend institutional schools (Medlin, 2000; Ray, 2009b). No research to date contravenes this general conclusion. In a few studies, on some of the sub-measures within a study, the home educated have scored slightly lower (i.e., “worse” according to the conceptual paradigm the researcher was using) than those in institutional schools. …

A corollary of the socialization question deals with whether the home-educated child will eventually function well in the world of adulthood… Various studies have addressed this issue in multiple ways. It appears that the home educated are engaged, at least as much as are others, in activities that predict leadership in adulthood (Montgomery, 1989), doing well on their college/university SAT tests (Barber, 2001, personal communication) and ACT tests (ACT, 2005), matriculating in college at a rate that is comparable or a bit higher than for the general public (Ray, 2004; Van Pelt 2003), performing well in college (Gray, 1998; Galloway & Sutton, 1995; Jenkins, 1998; Jones & Gloeckner, 2004; Mexcur, 1993; Oliveira, Watson, & Sutton, 1994), satisfied that they were home educated (Knowles & Muchmore, 1995; Ray, 2004; Van Pelt, Neven, & Allison, 2009), involved in community service at least
as much as others (Ray, 2004; Van Pelt, Neven, & Allison, 2009), and more civically engaged than the general public (Ray, 2004; Van Pelt, Neven, & Allison, 2009). There is no research evidence that having been home educated is associated with negative behaviors or ineptitudes in adulthood.

This particular study found even higher academic success rates for homeschoolers, who consistently scored above the 80th percentile in all tested areas, even science and math. The authors also looked at parental education, which Batholet is so concerned about, and found that a whopping 0.5% of mothers who homeschool their children did not graduate from highschool.

The idea of banning the 99.5% of homeschooling families whose mothers were literate enough to graduate from highschool because of the 0.5% who didn’t is straight up absurd, which is why batholet used imaginary illiterate people instead of real statistics.

What about child abuse? I’d think that would be captured in the overall data on social/emotional well-being and eventual adulthood competency, but maybe people who abuse their kids make efforts not to let them take surveys about how happy they feel. Regardless, homeschooled kids hail from the demographics with extremely low overall abuse rates–the vast majority come from white, middle class households with two married parents, while the kids most likely to be abused come from Native American, Black, poor, single-parent or no-parent households (eg grandparents, foster parents). If you don’t already know this, you have no business talking about child abuse.

Again, if your goal is to help abused children, it is easy to think of much more effective legislation than just blanket targeting all homeschoolers.

Batholet’s final, and frankly most bizarre objection, is that homeschooled children will be unable to contribute to a democratic society. She seems to think there is a cabal of underground monarchists hidden deep in the American heartland, raising their children to heil King George III as the rightful monarch of our land and to agitate for unification with Canada.

Back to O’Donnell’s article about Batholet:

She views the absence of regulations ensuring that homeschooled children receive a meaningful education equivalent to that required in public schools as a threat to U.S. democracy. “From the beginning of compulsory education in this country, we have thought of the government as having some right to educate children so that they become active, productive participants in the larger society,” she says. This involves in part giving children the knowledge to eventually get jobs and support themselves. “But it’s also important that children grow up exposed to community values, social values, democratic values, ideas about nondiscrimination and tolerance of other people’s viewpoints,” she says, noting that European countries such as Germany ban homeschooling entirely and that countries such as France require home visits and annual tests.

Hoooo boy. There’s a lot here to unpack.

First, let’s go back to the beginning of compulsory education in the US, circa 1830. (The Founding Fathers thought compulsory education of so little importance to “democracy” that it took half a century to get going.) I have here in my child-rearing library Bernard Wishy’s The Child and The Republic: The Dawn of Modern American Child Nurture, published in 1968 but still a very good overview of precisely this era in American history.

Spend about half an hour with this book and you will discover first that the subject is quite dull, and second, that you do not care a whit what people in the early 1800s thought about education because their general ideas about child-rearing are so entirely alien to yours.

Many Americans in this era were Puritans who literally believed that babies were inherently evil and would not be good people until they realized the importance of Christianity and were “born again” in Christ. These folks took babies soiling their nappies as evidence of their satanic natures and believed you had to beat the devil out of them.

Although expressed differently by proliferating Protestant sects… by 1800 Calvinist views of the child and of a human destiny under God’s stern judgement had demonstrated remarkable staying power.

This heritage included Jonathan Edwards’ famous words that unrepentant children were “young vipers and infinitely more hateful than vipers.” Another view was that they were “not too little to die…not too little to go to hell.” …

Despite the prestige and weight we now give the more congenital “modern” ideas o the American Enlightenment, in the very hour of the triumph of American independence in the 1780’s there had begun a remarkable resurgence of Calvinist iews and religious conservatism… For the next half-ctury, orthodox ministers would also invoke the convenient spectre of Jacobinism to strenghten their demands for strict disciplien and early religious traiinign of the child. The future of the nation as well as the child’s soul were said to be in danger.

Remarkable parallel.

Continuing with Wishy:

It is perhaps risky to speculate about the hostility to children that the belief in infant damnation and strict training seems to express. … it is likely that the responsibilities and expense of many unwanted children created or intensified hostile feelings towards offspring. Whatever inspired them, the orthodox were reluctant to dampen the fires o Hell awaiting the child who had not started the arduous training needed for saving the soul…

Infants were “by nature sinners, and show us that… the wicked are estranged from the womb, they go astray as soon as they are born, speaking lies.” [Reverend Allan Hyde, Essay on the State of Infants, NY, 1830.] …

Among the more conservative writers on the child was the President of Amherst College, Dr. Herman Humphrey. His book Domestic Education (1840) was a cataloge of errors for the day and a guide for perplexed mothers and fathers. … he called for absolute rule by the father, accountable to “no earthly power.” Fathers should try to control the child diligently by the age of four months. …

Complete rejection of the belief in depravity or innate tendencies to wickedness did not appear generally in popular literature until just before the Civil War.

But what about the schools themselves?

… the degree of the workday teachers’ and ministers’ hostility to encouraging intellectual and critical independence in students should also not be underestimated. … Precociousness was unnatural, and “forced feeding” of ideas even worse for the child. …

Some of the most revealing of the “impressions” that might come from the schoolroom have been examined by Ruth Miller Elson in a study of American textbooks before 1865. [Footnote: … This study confirms the evidence presented here of the essential conservatism of the goals sought through new methods of nurture. The textbooks studied stressed: the rejection of Europe, the exaltation of the Anglo-Saxon and scorning of the immigrant, the moral failure implicit in poverty, the acceptance of one’s own station and duties as God’s will, the ignoring or attacking of reform movements, the rightness of class distinctions…]

I have quoted this at length just to emphasize the utter absurdity of Batholet’s claims. Anyone who knows anything at all about the subject knows this is all the exact opposite of what Batholet wants; she is only invoking it because she assumes you don’t know anything about the subject. 

Rather, Batholet is attempting a bait-and-switch, invoking sacred ideas like “democracy” when she actually means “modern progressive liberal values.” And it is totally true that the majority of homeschooling families don’t put much stock in modern progressive liberal values (though a reasonable minority of homeschoolers are liberal hippie types).  The bait and switch and faux-concern for abused children (who could be much more effectively protected via other measures) is necessary because Batholet knows that insisting on educating children about pro-LGBT matters against their parents’ will would never pass First Amendment religious scrutiny.

Now on to Malkin.

Malkin’s piece is a little more over-the-top in tone, but just as disconnected from reality. She starts off by calling Google “kiddie predators,” as though the execs at Google’s offices liked to go raping six year olds in their spare time.

The Silicon Valley behemoth has already admitted it illegally collected children’s personal information on YouTube without parental consent, mines students’ browsing habits and emails, and tracks kids’ locations, audio and search history through Google educational apps and logons that are required for millions of students to participate in public schools.

Is Malkin actually ignorant about the facts of this case, or is she misrepresenting it on purpose?

The recent Youtube decision did not involve YT/Google doing something that it knew was illegal. It involved the government deciding to enforce a particular law in a new way that it hadn’t been used before, which made something YT was doing retroactively illegal.

The law in question prevents websites from gathering data/information from children, but it used to apply only to websites like Facebook where you make accounts that require personal information like your name or age. These laws are why Facebook, Youtube, and similar websites do not allow people under the age of 13 to have accounts: it’s illegal.

What Youtube was doing, which was not illegal, was tracking the viewing patterns of all users. If you watch five videos about car repair, and then you search for a video about truck repair, Youtube notices and in the future is likely to recommend videos about truck repair to people who’ve watched videos about car repair. This is how Youtube playlists and recommendations are generated, not to mention recommended products on Amazon, people you might want to follow on Twitter, not to mention all of the ads. Mom and Pop stores, major corporations, and TV stations also collect similar data about their customers/users.

These algorithms are fundamentally useful. They let Amazon recommend the product you’re looking for, they let Google figure out what you’re trying to type when you misspell something, and they let Youtube figure out that ads for vibrators don’t belong on videos featuring muppets.

The court case which expanded the scope of the original law found that when Youtube collected data like “Users who watched Baby Shark videos tend also to watch Pikachu videos,” even though that data was not attached to a particular name, account, or user, since it was a child on the other end of the screen, the data came from a child and thus was illegal to collect. I would like to emphasize that TV stations do the exact same thing when they look at their ratings and determine that people who watch Dora the Explorer tend to also watch Go Diego Go, but this has not been declared illegal simply because it involves a TV screen instead of a computer screen.

This is a moronic decision, since Youtube has no way of telling who exactly is on the other side of the screen (maybe it’s me, because I think the Baby Shark and Pikachu songs are funny), and cannot effectively figure out who is watching the videos in order to specifically not collect their data. The result has been the mass-demonetization of videos aimed at children, as determined by a combination of YT’s algorithms and creators’ own admission. A variety of other restrictions also now affect these videos, preventing them from showing up in recommendations and disabling comments.

This is a disaster for anyone making content aimed at children, from toy reviewers to teachers, because not only are their videos harder to find, but they also can’t get paid for them. Like everyone else, content creators need to eat.

Worse, there is no clear definition of what is “intended for children,” because the law was not originally written to cover such cases, and the legal threat/burden for determining this is put on the creators, not YT. So if you are making Minecraft videos that you intended for other adults like yourself, but it turns out that 10 year old boys also like watching them, you can be in violation of the law and get prosecuted by the federal government, but if you mark your videos as “for kids” they will at best show up next to “Baby Sings ABCs” videos and you won’t make any money.

Anyway, all of this is what Michelle Malkin is reducing to “illegally collected children’s information on Youtube”. The rest of the article contains similar mischaracterizations or omissions of vital details. Take this:

Can you imagine a similar breach of minors’ photos and videos stored on students’ Google Drives or Chromebooks or smartphones or home computers used to log on to mandatory learning management systems integrated with Google, such as Canvas or Schoology or Blackboard? It’s easy if you try.

I can imagine unicorns. So what? We’re not here to imagine make-believe harms.

Notice how both articles invent hypotheticals or imagined harms. This would be reasonable if we were talking about the effects of proposed legislation or future inventions, but not in the case of already existing legislation and technologies. Since these things already exist, we can talk about their actual effects, not imagined ones.

Malkin’s article is worse in this regard (at least Batholet could cite the case of one homeschooling family that abused their kids, while Malkin could not cite a single case of harm to children due to Google/YT), but both are focused on imagined harm because the real life harms are so rare.

Why are both of these articles so far off-base?

Could the authors/Batholet be lying? I have no reason to think that Batholet is intentionally, consciously lying–she sounds too much like relatives I’ve had conversations with in real life who just spout off about homeschooling without knowing anything about it.

Malkin probably isn’t in it for the money, (being featured on VDare probably does not make you money,) but she could be intentionally misleading people because she sees Google/Youtube as her enemy.

I think both Batholet and Malkin are motivated by dislike of their enemies/outgroup. Malkin has written previously about YT censoring her, and Batholet clearly doesn’t like religious conservatives. Dislike of your enemy makes you more likely to believe absurd things about him (he must do terrible things, otherwise he wouldn’t be your enemy,) and attacking your enemy, even for imagined faults, raises your own social status within your own group. Meanwhile it is difficult for anyone within your group to question your claims because such questions look a lot like ‘trying to argue that the outgroup isn’t actually all that bad’, which leaves you vulnerable to attacks from other status-climbers.

The average in-group reader, then, only hears one dominant side being articulated by people they respect, and so if they do not have any independent knowledge on the subject (and none of us can know everything,) then they are more likely to believe the incorrect information.

So, TL:DR

People are more likely to believe wrong things when they

1. Don’t know much about the subject at hand,
2. The incorrect information comes from an authority within their in-group,
3. It concern the out-group, or
4. They’re repeating a euphemism without realizing it’s a euphemism.

(eg, Batholet’s claim that homeschooling is bad for democracy is really a euphemism for bad for her politics. If a euphemism gets repeated often enough, people start believing it literally, forgetting what it originally stood for.)

You Only Die Once (Complete)

(The entire short story in one post.)

Chapter One
It Starts With an Earthquake

 

The earthquake struck at 2:34 in the morning in some far-off country Sheldon wasn’t entirely convinced was a real place and not just an elaborate con by geographers. Lemuria, or maybe Liplodia. Or nearby Diplodia. He heard about it on the 6 AM news while drinking his morning coffee–scientists had recently determined that the net health benefits of coffee outweighed its downsides, so he drank the recommended one cup a day of bitterness.

The pink-haired news anchor began weeping beautiful tears as footage of children being pulled from Diplodica’s ruins rolled in. “With the Aplodican hospital system overloaded and little hope for the people still buried in the wreckage, officials estimate the death toll will top a million by nightfall. 15 million people are now homeless; 45 million have no water or electricity. 10 million children–”

Sheldon flicked off the news. Emotional distress was bad for the heart. He was surprised they even let humans report the news anymore, given that they’d developed perfectly good robots who could analyze the news for them without incurring any stress.

The TV flicked itself back on. Of course. It was set to deliver 30 minutes of news a day, because the politically aware live longer than the politically unaware. Well, that didn’t count during a disaster, did it? He flicked it off again.

It turned back on.

Sheldon turned away to begin preparing his perfectly balanced nutritional breakfast while the pretty news anchor wept over the fate of Alodica’s orphans.

The news mercifully winked off as a call came in. His grandmother’s face replaced the pretty news anchor’s. “Have you heard the news?”

“Yes, Gram.” Sheldon quickly switched off the fox-girl filter. It just looked weird on his grandmother.

“15 million children without homes, can you imagine?” Her eyes looked red.

“Yes, Gram.” He drank his nutritional slurry. “Try not to worry about it. You know worrying isn’t good for your heart–”

“Don’t tell me about my heart,” she snapped. “Go call Minister Graham. He’s your representative. I’ve already texted you the information. Tell him you support Proposition 1452 for the immediate aid and relief of Laodicans, no, demand that he immediately support Proposition 14–”

“Gram, it’s okay. Calm down.”

“Young man, I will not calm down until you promise me that you will not just let those poor children suffer–”

“All right, all right. I’ll write to the Minister. Have you had your vitamins?”

“Yes of course.” She frowned in annoyance. “I’m not five, you know.”

“Yes, you’re 85 years old and as you know–”

“Just call the Minister before those children die, young man. It’s your duty.” The screen went black.

 

Chapter 2
Birds and Snakes and Aeroplanes

 

After a murderous quantity of dickering in the Senatorial House (Minister Graham was concerned about inadequate health funding for the nation’s hospitals), the first airplane load of Laostitian orphans arrived to universal applause. The cheering crowds waved banners with “We love you” written in a dozen languages (hopefully whatever language the Blaostatians spoke was among them, but no one seemed really sure) as each child disembarked. Sheldon watched the festivities remotely, because crowds were dangerous to your health. He expected the government to move in quickly to break up such a large gathering, but the police were oddly missing.

As each child was processed, stamped, and passed to a waiting family that had volunteered to foster the newcomers, Sheldon felt an unusual sensation in his chest. At first he thought it was the coffee affecting his heart, but after the screen switched to a live feed of the pretty news anchor hugging orphans, he realized it was something else: pride. His society had done something good. He had done something good. These children would have great lives.

The math was simple. People in his country enjoyed an average life expectancy of 88 years. The average life expectancy in Baostatia was only 68 years. One million Baodatian orphans would, therefore, gain 20 million—

“Can you believe it?” His friend James’s voice blared into the room.

“Volume, James!” shouted Sheldon, covering his ears.

“Sorry, sorry.” James fiddled with his microphone. They had been friends since middle school, when James had caught Sheldon trying to sneak into the girls’ room, then used this information to blackmail him into playing video games with him. “Can you believe it? They’re importing an entire army.”

“What are you talking about?” Sheldon set down his breakfast.

“Ew,” said James. “How do you eat that stuff?”

“Nutritional slurry is ethically sourced and 100% balanced nutrition.”

“It’s 50% cricket.”

“Ethically sourced crickets,” said Sheldon.

“I only eat tofu, like a real man,” said James.

“Everyone knows tofu is full of phytoestrogens that mess with your endocrine system, dude. Just eat the bugs.”

“Like I need an endocrine system. Who would bring kids into this world, anyway?” said James. “But whatever. It doesn’t matter when the government is importing an army of foreign mercenaries to replace us.”

Sheldon sighed and put his dishes in the sink. James always talked about politics but never watched the news, which made him frustratingly wrong about everything. “They’re children, James. Orphans.”

“Children?” James turned his camera to zoom in on his own TV screen. Grainy images of disembarking refugees flickered at an angle. “Do those look like children? That guy is at least thirty years old.”

“One, that’s not how you share videos and two, I need to get ready for work.” Sheldon put on his jacket and checked his watch. Five minutes to go.

“Oh, sure, rub it in my face, mister actually has a job.”

“Yes, I do, and it’s important.” Sheldon picked up his briefcase. He did IT for a major union, making sure important worker safety documentation didn’t get stolen. James was still hoping to make it big as gaming blogger, but he had his doubts about this plan.

“Fine, I’ll text you. the video. You can watch it during lunch. I’ve got a PDF about Lower Paodatian crimes stats you need to read, too. Those aren’t kids, Sheldon. You’re being lied to. Something really weird is going on.”

“All right, I’ll watch it later. Got to go.” He flicked off the camera and headed out. Of course he wouldn’t; he never watched James’s weird conspiracy videos, but he pretended to because James was basically a good friend.

Sheldon took the elevator down to the ground floor. Perfect timing; his rideshare arrived just as he exited the building. Now that everyone in the city had switched from owning private gas guzzlers to sharing autonomous electrics, pollution and traffic had almost entirely disappeared.

The streets buzzed with low-key excitement, people milling about with no obvious purpose. They seemed as happy about the orphans’ arrival as Sheldon had felt twenty minutes before.

A bell bringed as a bicycle approached. Sheldon frowned. Biking was dangerous. Over a thousand people a year died in bicycle accidents, and they messed with the cars’ algorithms. Why did the government even let people ride bicycles in the city? He stared angrily as the bicyclist rolled past, legs pumping idiotically, red hair streaming like a banner. Her green eyes met his and he was struck like a bird with an arrow.

Sheldon was in love.

 

Chapter 3:
Eye of the Hurricane

 

“Why do I have to learn this?” Nassim held up a cucumber. “Pick-el.” He waved the produce at the bodega’s refrigerated case and rattled off the names of the rest of the vegetables in his native Upper Paodatian. “Tafaha, zanahoria, ikhowe, filberts, skirlie neeps. Already good names. What learn for? You don’t even eat veg-e-tables. You eat sludge.”

Sheldon took a deep, calming breath before responding. Yes, studies showed that volunteers lived longer than non-volunteers, but he was beginning to wonder if working with abandoned puppies extended your lifespan more than teaching English to cranky, chain-smoking, 25 year old “teenagers” with two wives and 3 children back in Greater Paolotia.

The bell over the bodega’s door dingled as it opened and the redhead from apartment 57-E swept in. Sheldon didn’t know her name, but he had nicknamed her “Karen.”

“Um. Well. Yes. Obviously you should drink the nutritional shakes.” He picked up a large jar of fruity flavored powder and shook it at Nassim. “Optimally balanced nutrition with no salmonella.”

Nassim opened a refrigerated case and pulled out a transparent tub of glistening chicken livers and shook it back at him. “Nutrition better-er.” Sheldon thought he might vomit.

Karen had picked up a basket and was poking through the collection of mustards and chocolates displayed near the bodega’s entrance. This location had been a regular convenience store offering a variety of nutritional beverages and first aid supplies, but after a terrible hurricane decimated the Jaifijian Archipelago three months ago, a refugee family had moved in and transformed it. Sheldon and Nassim were shopping there because he had thought an opportunity to actually use English in the field would provide more motivation than the classroom, but he now realized had been overly optimistic.

“Dude, why don’t you just talk to her?” Nassim dropped the tub of livers into the basket.

Sheldon turned quickly. “Come on, let’s check out. You can practice numbers.”

“You practice. You like her; go say hi.”

“I do not.” He put the jar of fruity powder in his basket. Sheldon picked up a box of granola at random and stuffed it into his basket. “It’s just, it’s not safe at night anymore because of the gang war, and the police confiscated her bike so she has to walk home, so I keep an out just in case something goes wrong–”

“Talk talk talk. All you do. No liver, no wonder. Just go talk to her.”

“I can’t do that. That’s sexual harassment. What if she doesn’t want to be talked to? What if she’s deaf and talking to her is a microaggression? I could accidentally traumatize–hey, where are you going?”

“It is not hard.” Nassim picked up a bunch of carrots. “Watch.” He walked up to her, smiling. “Excuse me, miss.” He pulled out the carrots. “What do you call these… rutabegas?”

Karen smiled. “These are carrots.”

“Care-otes.” Nassim nodded, then pointed to the rest of the produce. “And these?”

“I think those are Zucchini.” She laughed.

“Ah, zucchini, thank you.” He hefted a bag. “You like, zucchini? Good?”

“Oh, I’ve never had zucchini. I just have the nutritional shakes.”

“Never had zucchini?” Nassim put another bag in his basket. “I grill. Make delicious. Delicious! You will love it. Come, 8 o’clock.” He put down the basket and pulled out his phone. “Give me your number and I text you address.”

Sheldon thought he could feel something popping in his inner ear as Karen pulled out her phone and, laughing, agreed to dinner. He didn’t even remember to put the tub of chicken livers back in the refrigerated case before paying for his food and marching angrily into the street.

“Hey, dude.” Nassim caught up with him, smoking already. “See? Easy.”

“What? No!” Sheldon gestured wildly. “Not easy–”

“Whoa.” Nassim caught his arm. “Dinner tomorrow. 8’o clock. You come. We have party.”

Sheldon set down his bag of groceries in shock. “Me?”

“You.” Nassim fished the tub of livers out of the bag and put it in his own. “You come; you meet girl.”

If there was a party, it was happening somewhere in Sheldon’s guts and using his stomach as a trampoline, but he managed to croak out a “Yeah, sure,” before running away.

 

Chapter 4
Listen to Yourself Churn

 

Sheldon almost stayed home. He had showered, dressed, picked out an appropriate gift (a wireless wall lamp), and made it to the lobby of his apartment building when the familiar banners flanking the exit caught his eye:

Act so your actions
May be a Law
For the whole World

Before you go
Stop. Reflect.
Are you being safe?

And, of course, the national motto:

You Only Die Once

Did he really need to go out? No, of course not. Was it safe? Well, every outing carried risk; it was difficult to get into a car accident while sitting on the couch, watching TV.

Sheldon had one foot back in the elevator when his phone began ringing. A phone call? Who used phones to call anyone anymore?

“What’s up?”

“Sheldon!” James’s voice came through loud and much too clear. “I tried the telelink, but you’re not at home. Don’t tell me you’ve gone out–”

Sheldon punched the up button as the elevator left without him. “Well, actually–”

“Have you gone mad? Don’t you know there’s a gang war going on?”

“James, I’m not going to a war, it’s a party–”

“You’re going to a shooting, that’s where you’re going. You know crime rates in Quodatian neighborhoods are astronomical–”

“It’s Greater Quodatian, James. You have to remember these things now,” Sheldon cut in. “And the crime rates are only high because so many of them are unemployed, traumatized refugees. They have to learn English before they can get good jobs, which is why I’ve been volunteering–”

“Volunteering your hide, more like. Just go home and be safe.”

“It is safe, James. I’ll go and prove it.” Sheldon hung up the phone and marched out the door.

He realized immediately upon arrival that he was wrong. He should have stayed home and read up on investment strategies; instead strangers were belching weed in his face and piling half-raw hamburger meat onto his flimsy paper plate. Nassim was flipping zucchinis and chicken livers on the grill while children screamed and threw fireworks across the apartment’s courtyard.

“Nassim, how did you get AB approval?”

“What?” Nassim plunked a bottle of beer next to his plate.

“The Apartment Board. They have to approve–” He winced as a firework went off. “My Apartment’s Board requires three kinds of insurance, a $1,000 deposit and two months advanced notice before they’ll approve a party.”

“I don’t know ‘Apartment Board,’” said Nassim. “I just got grill, invite neighbors.”

Sheldon was about to object when Nassim broke into a grin, threw down his spatula, and ran across the apartment courtyard to greet more guests.

A minute later, one of the burgers caught on fire. Sheldon knew that unlicensed operation of a grill was a misdemeanor punishable with up to a year in jail, but he also knew that he had to take action fast to save everyone near the conflagration. He grabbed the spatula and began whacking the burger, hoping to put out the flames.

He couldn’t tell if things were supposed to be smoking or not. Was that how grills were supposed to work? Well, Nassim had been flipping things, so he tried flipping things. One of the burgers disintegrated, falling through the bars. Oh no. This was why Sheldon didn’t have a grilling license. You were supposed to have a grilling license, grilling disaster insurance, carbon offsets, and get tri-annual grill inspections before you could even think about using a grill, and here he stood with only a spatula between the open flames and the lives of hundreds of innocent families who lived inside the building–

“Hey, Sheldon, get this lady a burger.”

“Oh! Kar–I mean, hi.” He just barely managed to slide one of the burgers and a zucchini onto probably-not-actually-named-Karen’s plate. “Nassim, you can’t leave me here, I don’t have a grilling license, and–” More fireworks popped off. “Why are they juggling fireworks!?”

Nassim laughed. “Just relax. Have fun. You only live once, you know.”

 

Chapter 5
The Ladder starts to Clatter With a Fear of Heights

 

Somehow Karen (who was actually named Lauren), Nassim, and Sheldon ended up sitting across from each other at the rickety picnic benches in Nassim’s courtyard. Lauren and Nassim laughed over some obscure joke while Sheldon poked at his food. The burgers were simultaneously burned (literally) on the outside, raw on the inside, and absolutely disgusting.

Nassim elbowed him. “Go ahead. Try it.”

“I don’t… I don’t eat cows,” said Sheldon.

“It’s only part of a cow,” said Lauren, halfway through her own burger. “Ohmigod, this is delicious.”

He eyed the spicy chicken livers. There was no way any of this was going in his mouth.

“You have to try it,” said Lauren. She had speared a chicken liver with her fork and was staring at him expectantly. Sheldon poked his burger. How was he supposed to hold this thing? Maybe he could take just one bite–for politeness’s sake–and be done with it.

The burger crumbled as he bit into it, half melting in his mouth. This was… amazing. Yes, parts of it were burned and parts of it were crusty and most of it he definitely did not want to think about, but there was this juice and this flavor and… he couldn’t even describe it. “I think this is the most wonderful thing I have ever eaten,” said Sheldon.

“Sure beats slurry, doesn’t it?” She popped one of the livers in her mouth. “Oh, that’s spicy.”

“Well, I don’t know if I’d say that,” he tried to mutter around the burger. “Slurry has its benefits. It’s ethically sourced, carbon neutral, doesn’t require murdering sentient creatures…” The burger disappeared and he found himself compulsively licking his fingers. What the hell was he doing? He grabbed a napkin and wiped them clean like a civilized person.

“I can’t say much for the liver,” said Lauren, “but the zucchini is worth a try.”

“Right, zucchini.” He eyed the grilled strips of vegetables. He was probably going to get cancer from all of these carcinogens. “So, uh. I think we live in the same building. I see you heading to work sometimes.”

“And at the bodega,” she said.

“Oh. Yeah.” He took a bite of the zucchini. Whoah. Did choking hazards always taste this good, or was nearly burning all of your food to cinders a form of magic? “I volunteer on Sundays, teaching English. We were doing a field trip to practice using English in a real-world environment.”

“Really?” Lauren looked impressed.

He decided to chance one of the spicy livers.

Nope.

Some things really were disgusting.

“I told you,” she said.

“Yes.” His mouth was on fire. He desperately wanted to spit it out, but Nassim and Lauren were both watching him. Where were the drinks?

He grabbed the beer. He didn’t want beer; he knew beer was terrible and caused thousands of deaths per year, but it was the only drink on the table and he needed something to wash down the liver.

That was a mistake.

Beer and liver, he realized, were acquired tastes. Thankfully the kids screaming through the courtyard decided to set off a pile of fireworks, distracting Lauren and Nassim.

“What about you? What do you do?” asked Sheldon. He tried to lean nonchalantly against the table. He hoped she hadn’t seen him gagging.

“I work in medical sales.” Somehow she took a sip of the beer. How did she do it? “Ventilators, syringes, masks, PPE–you can never have too much, that’s what I say.”

“Definitely.” He tried to match her sip. If she could drink it, he could too, right? “I’m in IT–data protection. Do you work nearby? I used to see you riding your bike in the mornings.”

“Oh, no, I don’t. I’m was just trying to save money, until those pigs took my bike away. Now I’m stuck paying or walking.” Sip.

“Well, at least you’re safer, now.”

“Safer?” Her eyes narrowed.

“Well, yes. A thousand people a year die in bicycle accidents.”

Her bottle thunked against the table. “You know, there was a study, in China. People were randomly given either a car or a bicycle and then weighed a year later. The people who got the car gained an average of 20 pounds a year over the bicyclists. Six hundred and forty seven thousand people died of heart attacks last year. People who don’t ride bikes will just switch to riding in cars, gain weight, and die.”

Sheldon took a strong drink. “But there was a terrible accident just last month. An electric AI collided with a bicyclist–that’s why the council finally outlawed riding on city streets. The bikes are too small; the AIs can’t see them properly.”

“If the AIs can’t see the bikes, then get rid of the AIs,” fumed Lauren. “Riding bikes is healthier, would save thousands of lives–”

This was a ridiculous argument. “The autonomous cars have cut accident deaths tenfold. You could save thousands of lives just by giving people stationary bikes to ride inside their apartments, where it’s safe–”

“I bet you can’t even ride a bike.” Lauren stood up, angry.

Shit. Sheldon realized he’d fucked up. “That’s not true. I can, I can.” Well, he had ridden one once, at his aunt’s in the country. When he was ten.

“You don’t understand because you haven’t done it.”

Nassim stood up, waving his hands. “Wait. Wait. Calm down. It is not problem.” He pointed to a bike rack in the back of the courtyard. “You can use mine.”

Sheldon stood, not sure if the alcohol was affecting him. Alcohol was known to make people make terrible decisions, and he realized just after he spoke that he had made a big one. “All right. I’ll prove it.”

The courtyard rack was filled with what could only be described as crackhead bikes: no paint, mismatched wheels, and only a fifty/fifty chance of handlebars. At least it was legal to ride here, off the street. Nassim pulled a bike out for him. The wheels spun. That was a good sign.

He mounted shakily. This was a terrible idea–he didn’t even have a bicycle license. He almost got off, but Lauren was staring at him, hands on her hips. He pushed off with his feet and fell immediately. A crowd had gathered by the time he got back up. She was laughing. Nassim helped him back on the bike and gave him a shove.

Sheldon found himself moving much faster than he had expected. It was only by some miracle that nothing was directly in front of him; he pedaled madly, terrified of crashing, desperately hoping the steering would take care of itself.

The bike careened down the path, down the hill, out of control, and for one eternal, transcendent moment everything melted away and he felt nothing but pure fear and exhilaration. He was flying.

Then something exploded.

 

Chapter 6
A Wire in a Fire and a Combat Site

 

Sheldon was released from the hospital four hours later, following two x-rays, a CT scan, and extensive bandaging. James came to pick him up, muttering, “Can I possibly convince you not to kill yourself?” all the way back to his apartment.

“I wasn’t trying to die,” said Sheldon. The nurse said he was very lucky to still have most of his skin after skidding down the street like a human on a cheese grater. The explosion had knocked him off the bike, landed him in a pile of rubble and broken his arm, but thankfully his head was okay and he hadn’t suffered a concussion.

“If I ever fall in love, preemptively institutionalize me,” said James.

The car halted in front of Sheldon’s apartment. “Can you get the door? My arm won’t bend.”

James came around to his side of the car and helped him into the building. “They’re calling it a terrorist attack, you know.”

“Calling what?” Sheldon hobbled slowly toward the elevators. Most of his left side was bandaged. He leaned against the wall and pressed the Up button. He didn’t feel like taking the stairs today, cardiovascular health or no.

James’s hands twitched when he talked. “The explosion.” He was always jittery, but high explosives made it worse.

“They’re calling a bunch of fireworks a terrorist attack?” The elevator arrived with a ding.

“Fireworks?” James punched the buttons for him. “The whole parking garage exploded. You’re lucky you didn’t get crushed. They’re saying thermonitrite, maybe a fertilizer bomb. A big one.”

Sheldon sighed. “James, you don’t even watch the news. It was just some kids playing with fireworks.”

“Shit, everyone knows they don’t put the real news on the news. They don’t want people to panic–there‘d be carnage.” James held the door when they reached his floor. “Anyway, it didn’t have anything to do with that party you went to–it’s the gang war between the Jaifijians and Quotidians. Someone was trying to blow up a rival gang leader and took out the whole parking garage with him.”

Sheldon shook his head and sank onto the couch. “Thanks for bringing me home.”

“No problem, man,” said James. He had gone into the kitchen to rummage around in the cupboards. He returned a few minutes later with drinks for both of them. “Here. Drink up. Hydration is important. I brought over a list of nootropics and other supplements my gym bros recommend for healing after an accident and put put it up on your refrigerator. Be sure to pick up the L-glutamate tomorrow before work. You can mix it with your slurry.”

“Okay.” Sheldon didn’t really feel like talking, so they turned on the news and drank in silence. James had been right; the parking garage had collapsed. “Why would they do that?” he muttered to himself, so James decided to enlighten him on the history of Lifijian and Western Quotidian race relations.

Sheldon woke the next morning at dawn. His head hurt, his arm was in a cast, and the TV was still on in the living room. He poured coffee in his slurry and ignored the list of instructions James had left for him on the refrigerator. All right, so he’d been dumb. He admitted that. Well, everyone was dumb sometimes. But at least he’d tried.

He went onto the porch to watch the sunrise. Something felt different. Sure, he was in pain, but that wasn’t it. He felt alive.

He drank his coffee and listened to the birds. The news droned in the background, but he didn’t feel like listening. Everything on the TV seemed dull and unconvincing compared to the warm cup in his hand, the bitter taste in his mouth, the sunlight pouring through the clouds and the birds on the railing.

There was something about nearly dying that put the life into you, he realized. He wanted to go back, to ride again. This was an idiotic thought, he knew. He’d just broken his arm riding a bike. But the thought remained.

Of course he couldn’t do anything while his arm was in a cast. He went to work, drank weird-tasting slurry, and watched his daily ration of news. His skin began to heal, making him itch. Bombings were becoming more frequent. Even the news anchors seemed to admit that things weren’t entirely perfect. He felt anxious, but terrorists from Alybia had driven a fertilizer bomb into the Department of Justice and blown it up, killing two thousand people, so who wouldn’t feel anxious?

The president made some impressive speeches from the deck of a CVN-78 aircraft carrier about the importance of Freedom, Safety, and Prosperity. “We must take the fight to our enemies in their homelands so they don’t have a chance to bring their war to ours,” he bellowed, looking very impressive in his camouflage flight suit. Sheldon still felt confused about some of the finer points of the war, since wasn’t even sure where Alydia was on the map, much less why they were in a fight.

James was in his element, calling him daily after work to update him on their movement of troops in Surdistan. Surdistan wasn’t even part of Alydia, but James reassured him that there were important terrorists in Surfistan, too. “We have to strike them wherever they are,” he said. “Wherever they go, we will hunt them down. We will track them to the ends of the earth, no matter the cost–”

“What is the cost of all this?” James checked his bank account. Things were getting expensive. Rent was up, he now had to pay for terrorism insurance, and taxes were going up to pay for the war.

“Only two, maybe 3-4-5 trillion dollars,” said James. “Peanuts, really. Okay, so it’s the size of the entire federal budget, but you can’t put a price on life, Sheldon.”

“No cost is too high?”

“If there’s even a chance we can stop the terrorists and save a life, we have to do it,” said James. “We’ll pay any price.”

Sheldon nodded, but the calculation seemed off. He knew you couldn’t bring back the dead, that he ought to be willing to bear the cost of saving a life, but still, a voice nagged at the back of his head. He wanted to get married someday. He wanted a wife, a house, and children. He lived frugally and saved diligently, but he knew raising a kid cost over $300,000–before college–but he didn’t have anywhere near that much money. Between the accident and the tax increase, he would be lucky if he could save anything this month.

He felt sick of it all, the taste of grit returning to his mouth. What was the point? “I have to go.” He flipped off the telelink and left the apartment. He didn’t really have a destination; he just wanted to go out. To move. To breathe.

The next day he filed the paperwork for a bicycle license, solemnly swore before a Department of Vehicles worker to always wear a helmet and never ride on a road, and bought the best mountain bike his local store had for sale. A cheaper bike might have been just as good, but if this thing was going to be the only protection between him and thousands of rocks, he might as well get the extended warranty and accident protection.

An hour later, Sheldon was riding.

It wasn’t that bad, now that he had real breaks and functional handlebars.

There was a dedicated bike trail at the local park, one of the few places you could legally ride in the city. This was his favorite time of day, when the afternoon sun slanted through the trees like gold and the distant clouds looked like grey mountains. The wheels hummed beneath him, vibrating slightly on the smooth path. He huffed up the hill then coasted down the other side, feeling the wind on his face. He felt himself flowing through them and they through him.

Slurry tasted plain in the morning, but it didn’t matter. He had a plan. After work he returned to the park, building his confidence. On Saturday, he headed to the mountain trails and rode until his legs ached. Yes, it was dangerous. Yes, he fell. Yes, it was an expensive bike, but realistically, he didn’t have the money for kids, anyway, so he might as well spend his savings. (He still didn’t know how Nassim managed to raise three kids on public assistance.) But when he rode he flowed through the mountains and the mountains flowed through him and he felt more alive than he ever had before. At night he dreamed of stars pouring out of the Milky Way and miles melting beneath him.

***

“Oy mate, you got a license for that bike?”

Sheldon had just unloaded the bike from his Uber and was wheeling it up the path to his apartment when two police officers appeared. One grabbed his bike while the other pulled out a notepad. “We got a call from a lady in your building about a man riding recklessly on the sidewalk.”

“I never ride on the sidewalk–”

“So you’ve been riding in the street?”

“No, but–”

“Gotta see that license, buddy.”

“It’s in my bag, I’ll get it for you–”

“No, don’t move. Give me the bag. I’ll get it.”

Sheldon grudgingly handed the officer his bag. After a few minutes of rummaging, they pulled out the license. “This doesn’t look like you.”

“I had a haircut.”

There was shouting and scuffling on the opposite side of the street. Sheldon craned his neck to see around the cars. “Hey, I think something’s going on–”

“We have to confiscate your bike,” said the first officer.

“Wait, what?”

“Riding on the sidewalk, riding in the street, failure to update your license following a personal appearance change–you’re lucky we don’t write you two tickets.”

“But I didn’t–” Sheldon watched sadly as the police wheeled his bike away to their squad car. He looked down at the ticket in his hand. “Dammit.”

The scuffle continued on the other side of the street, unnoticed by the cops. Sheldon stuffed his license, bicycle repair kit, and first aid supplies back in his bag. Who the hell reported him? And why?

Someone screamed on the other side of the street. Sheldon grabbed his bag and darted between the cars. Two guys ran off, leaving a third bleeding on the sidewalk.

“You okay?” The guy’s arm was bleeding pretty badly, so he grabbed a bandage from his first aid kit and started applying pressure.

“Yeah, I think so.” He sat up, rubbing his head.

“You should get to the hospital, get that stitched up.” He waited with the guy until the ambulance came, then went back to his own apartment. At least his first aid kit had been good for something.

 

Chapter 7
It’s the End of the World as we Know it

 

To add insult to injury, Sheldon found five notarized fines from the Apartment Board when he checked his mail that evening: two for having a “street worthy vehicle” in the apartment, one for damage/dirt to the common areas from his bike’s wheels, one for storing his bike on his balcony, one for ‘reckless endangerment’ and ‘liability’ due to riding a bicycle, and one he couldn’t make heads nor tails of, but seemed to be faulting him for drinking coffee in the mornings.

What could he do? He called the Apartment Board to protest the fines–he didn’t even have a bike anymore–but they insisted that they had security footage and eyewitness testimony from his neighbors of him riding the bike, and that if he didn’t pay, they’d kick him out.

He paid his fines, went to work, filed a complaint with the city about the unjust confiscation of his bike. Maybe in six months he’d get a hearing and the police officers’ body cam footage would exonerate him–if he could get it. It wasn’t really worth hiring a lawyer over a bike, not even a good one.

Without the bike and his trips to the mountains he felt a creeping emptiness, a sense of being dead inside. Lauren suggested a stationary bike, when they met at the bodega and swapped news. James suggested fluoxetine. Sheldon decided to try his apartment’s exercise room. His rent paid for it, after all–and he certainly paid enough rent. Watching TV probably wasn’t bad for you if you were lifting weights at the same time, right?

The stationary bike wasn’t anything like a real bike, but it was something. December rolled around, and he found that riding and lifting helped him get through the dark days. He turned the TV to travel shows and planned for warmer weather, when he’d get a new bike and set out on new trails. He had an idea for a business, selling GPS devices to cyclists so they wouldn’t get lost in the mountains.

One morning in early January he came downstairs and found a notice taped to the door of the exercise room that it was officially closed. He tried calling the apartment office to ask why, but it wasn’t open before nine. That evening he found a notice in his mailbox that the exercise room had been closed due to liability concerns and a week’s worth of fines for having used the “closed” room.

Again he called the Apartment Board, protesting that they couldn’t possibly fine him for using the Exercise Room before they told him it was shut down, and that moreover, use of the room was covered in his rent and therefore they were the ones who owed him, but they were adamant that liability concerns took precedence over his “assumptions” about what his rental agreement did or did not cover. Hadn’t he heard about the accident at Avalon Estates? Someone nearly suffocated when a barbell fell on their neck, and considering the resulting lawsuit and increase in exercise room insurance rates there was just no way they could keep the Exercise Room open.

Outside, January drizzled on, bleak and cold. Inside, Sheldon woke at 4 to sneak down to the exercise room. He and one other resident were the only ones who had ever really used it, and though the card readers had been deactivated, his key still worked on the back lock. He worked out until 6, then showered, dressed, and went to work. What the Board didn’t know couldn’t hurt them, right? As long as he was working out against their orders, they couldn’t be held liable for his injuries, he figured.

***

“Hey! Hey!” Sheldon was startled out of his reverie by someone banging on the door. “Hey, you’re not allowed to be in there.”

He got cautiously off the stationary bike, wiping his chest with his towel. The door swung open as the building’s night watchman barreled in. He had his walkie talkie out. “I’ve got a 5-9 trespass in the basement. Requesting backup.”

Sheldon held up his hands. “I’m just exercising. I live here. This is the exercise room.”

“This area is off-limits to residents and visitors.” The watchman raised his voice. “I am asking you, once again, to leave or I will have you arrested.”

“Fine, fine. I’ll leave.” Sheldon grabbed his bag. “You don’t need to yell.” He stormed out of the room.

The old lady from the apartment next to his was at the mailboxes, casually pretending to be intensely interested in the back of the box. “Serves you right for putting all of us at risk,” she called after him.

Sheldon punched her door, 5-E, on the way to his apartment. It didn’t do any good, but it felt good. The next day he found the locks changed on the exercise room. The police still hadn’t given his bike back. It was raining and his boss wanted yet another layer of security over their networks that he really thought was just going to drive down productivity by making it more difficult for different departments to coordinate.

Sheldon took a serious look at how much he was paying to live in the city and decided to fuck it all: he was moving out.

He put in his three months’ notice, ignored the frantic phone calls from his mother, filed the paperwork for an LLC, and moved the few things he really wanted to keep into the back room of a bicycle shop a hundred miles away. Everything else he put into Bitcoins, at James’s insistence, in case the apartment complex tried to come after him for damages.

Before he moved out, he decided to host a party.

“Hey, Nassim.”

His friend’s voice sounded tinny through the phone. “Sheldon? Long time, no see. How are you?”

“I’m having a party this weekend at my apartment. I’m moving out and I want to have a big get together with all my friends before I go. Can you make it?“

There was a pause. “Are you serving slurry?”

“No, of course not. There will be burgers.”

“Excellent. I will be there.”

“Great. Bring your whole family. I’d love to meet them. And your friends. Invite them all! It’s going to be a blast.”

Sheldon invited his former coworkers, James, and all of the other folks he’d tutored over the past year, then told them to invite their friends. He didn’t bother asking the AB for permission: he knew they never approved parties for people who were about to move out, (certainly not without a deposit and three forms of insurance), so he might as well go big. Screw the AB.

 

Chapter 8
And I Feel Fine

 

Nassim brought about 200 of his “closest friends,” including his wives and 4 children, 23 cousins and 47 nieces and nephews. They had burgers for Nassim’s family, veggie burgers for James and the other vegetarians, and firecrackers for the kids. Someone brought beer and James set up speakers behind the grill. What could the AB do, kick him out? His stuff was already gone and he was leaving that evening.

Sheldon laughed and shoveled burgers onto plates. Kids shouted and ran around him. James had been right; many of the so-called “child” refugees had actually been grown adults, but they’d brought their families and now there were babies everywhere.

He’d figured out that there were so many refugees in part because the folks in Outer Angora didn’t bother with technical details like “building codes,” even though the region suffered frequent earth quakes: they just made more children. If you had 12 children and half of them died, well, you still had 6. Sheldon had saved carefully for years, and he still didn’t have any children.

Tomorrow he’d be gone on a new adventure. Maybe he would succeed. Maybe he would fail.

Either way, he was determined to live before he died.

It wasn’t long before the firecrackers attracted the attention of his neighbors. Several of them took burgers and joined the party, but the sour-faced lady from apartment 5-E called the security guard on them.

Thirty minutes later the president of the Apartment Board arrived. He waved his hands. “You have no permit for this gathering.”

“This is a religious holiday,” shouted Nassim. “It is the feast of Good-Rama-Eid-Over. We have every right to be here.”

Sheldon handed Nassim a beer and turned up the music. After several minutes of futile fuming and dodging fireworks, the AB president realized there was nothing he could do about the crowd and left.

“That man.” Nassim waved his hands in imitation. “He walk like virgin. Oh no, a noise! I am frightened.”

Sheldon laughed. He knew that walk. He used to walk like that.

“Hi.” Lauren took one of the veggie burgers.

“Oh, hey. I didn’t realize you were here.”

“Oh, Nassim invited me. He says you’re moving out.”

“Yeah.” He still had trouble believing how good burgers tasted, but he supposed it was a side effect of eating almost nothing but nutritional slurry for a decade. “I’ve invested in a business selling GPS devices and protective gear to mountain bikers.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, obviously it’s really dangerous to go biking in places you don’t know well, and sometimes people get lost up in places where they don’t have cell signal. Then they can’t call for help. So I’ll be selling GPSes, helmets, maybe other things. See what people want.”

She smiled. “I guess I should come by your shop sometime.”

“Yeah. I’ll text you the address. We can go riding together. I can show you the best trails.”

“You’ll make sure I don’t get lost?”

“Of course.”

Fireworks exploded at the other end of the courtyard, setting a tree on fire. Gunshots cracked in the distance, followed by sirens. Sheldon wondered if they were celebratory gunshots or the bad kind. Either way, he was glad he was getting out of the city: crime was getting too high around here.

YODO: It’s the end of the world as we Know it

Fiction
You Only Die Once: Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapters 3&4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6

Chapter 7: It’s the End of the World as we Know it

 

To add insult to injury, Sheldon found five notarized fines from the Apartment Board when he checked his mail that evening: two for having a “street worthy vehicle” in the apartment, one for damage/dirt to the common areas from his bike’s wheels, one for storing his bike on his balcony, one for ‘reckless endangerment’ and ‘liability’ due to riding a bicycle, and one he couldn’t make heads nor tails of, but seemed to be faulting him for drinking coffee in the mornings.

What could he do? He called the Apartment Board to protest the fines–he didn’t even have a bike anymore–but they insisted that they had security footage and eyewitness testimony from his neighbors of him riding the bike, and that if he didn’t pay, they’d kick him out.

He paid his fines, went to work, filed a complaint with the city about the unjust confiscation of his bike. Maybe in six months he’d get a hearing and the police officers’ body cam footage would exonerate him–if he could get it. It wasn’t really worth hiring a lawyer over a bike, not even a good one.

Without the bike and his trips to the mountains he felt a creeping emptiness, a sense of being dead inside. Lauren suggested a stationary bike, when they met at the bodega and swapped news. James suggested fluoxetine. Sheldon decided to try his apartment’s exercise room. His rent paid for it, after all–and he certainly paid enough rent. Watching TV probably wasn’t bad for you if you were lifting weights at the same time, right?

The stationary bike wasn’t anything like a real bike, but it was something. December rolled around, and he found that riding and lifting helped him get through the dark days. He turned the TV to travel shows and planned for warmer weather, when he’d get a new bike and set out on new trails. He had an idea for a business, selling GPS devices to cyclists so they wouldn’t get lost in the mountains.

One morning in early January he came downstairs and found a notice taped to the door of the exercise room that it was officially closed. He tried calling the apartment office to ask why, but it wasn’t open before nine. That evening he found a notice in his mailbox that the exercise room had been closed due to liability concerns and a week’s worth of fines for having used the “closed” room.

Again he called the Apartment Board, protesting that they couldn’t possibly fine him for using the Exercise Room before they told him it was shut down, and that moreover, use of the room was covered in his rent and therefore they were the ones who owed him, but they were adamant that liability concerns took precedence over his “assumptions” about what his rental agreement did or did not cover. Hadn’t he heard about the accident at Avalon Estates? Someone nearly suffocated when a barbell fell on their neck, and considering the resulting lawsuit and increase in exercise room insurance rates there was just no way they could keep the Exercise Room open.

Outside, January drizzled on, bleak and cold. Inside, Sheldon woke at 4 to sneak down to the exercise room. He and one other resident were the only ones who had ever really used it, and though the card readers had been deactivated, his key still worked on the back lock. He worked out until 6, then showered, dressed, and went to work. What the Board didn’t know couldn’t hurt them, right? As long as he was working out against their orders, they couldn’t be held liable for his injuries, he figured.

***

“Hey! Hey!” Sheldon was startled out of his reverie by someone banging on the door. “Hey, you’re not allowed to be in there.”

He got cautiously off the stationary bike, wiping his chest with his towel. The door swung open as the building’s night watchman barreled in. He had his walkie talkie out. “I’ve got a 5-9 trespass in the basement. Requesting backup.”

Sheldon held up his hands. “I’m just exercising. I live here. This is the exercise room.”

“This area is off-limits to residents and visitors.” The watchman raised his voice. “I am asking you, once again, to leave or I will have you arrested.”

“Fine, fine. I’ll leave.” Sheldon grabbed his bag. “You don’t need to yell.” He stormed out of the room.

The old lady from the apartment next to his was at the mailboxes, casually pretending to be intensely interested in the back of the box. “Serves you right for putting all of us at risk,” she called after him.

Sheldon punched her door, 5-E, on the way to his apartment. It didn’t do any good, but it felt good. The next day he found the locks changed on the exercise room. The police still hadn’t given his bike back. It was raining and his boss wanted yet another layer of security over their networks that he really thought was just going to drive down productivity by making it more difficult for different departments to coordinate.

Sheldon took a serious look at how much he was paying to live in the city and decided to fuck it all: he was moving out.

He put in his three months’ notice, ignored the frantic phone calls from his mother, filed the paperwork for an LLC, and moved the few things he really wanted to keep into the back room of a bicycle shop a hundred miles away. Everything else he put into Bitcoins, at James’s insistence, in case the apartment complex tried to come after him for damages.

Before he moved out, he decided to host a party.

“Hey, Nassim.”

His friend’s voice sounded tinny through the phone. “Sheldon? Long time, no see. How are you?”

“I’m having a party this weekend at my apartment. I’m moving out and I want to have a big get together with all my friends before I go. Can you make it?“

There was a pause. “Are you serving slurry?”

“No, of course not. There will be burgers.”

“Excellent. I will be there.”

“Great. Bring your whole family. I’d love to meet them. And your friends. Invite them all! It’s going to be a blast.”

Sheldon invited his former coworkers, James, and all of the other folks he’d tutored over the past year, then told them to invite their friends. He didn’t bother asking the AB for permission: he knew they never approved parties for people who were about to move out, (certainly not without a deposit and three forms of insurance), so he might as well go big. Screw the AB.

 

Chapter 8: And I Feel Fine

 

Nassim brought about 200 of his “closest friends,” including his wives and 4 children, 23 cousins and 47 nieces and nephews. They had burgers for Nassim’s family, veggie burgers for James and the other vegetarians, and firecrackers for the kids. Someone brought beer and James set up speakers behind the grill. What could the AB do, kick him out? His stuff was already gone and he was leaving that evening.

Sheldon laughed and shoveled burgers onto plates. Kids shouted and ran around him. James had been right; many of the so-called “child” refugees had actually been grown adults, but they’d brought their families and now there were babies everywhere.

He’d figured out that there were so many refugees in part because the folks in Outer Angora didn’t bother with technical details like “building codes,” even though the region suffered frequent earth quakes: they just made more children. If you had 12 children and half of them died, well, you still had 6. Sheldon had saved carefully for years, and he still didn’t have any children.

Tomorrow he’d be gone on a new adventure. Maybe he would succeed. Maybe he would fail.

Either way, he was determined to live before he died.

It wasn’t long before the firecrackers attracted the attention of his neighbors. Several of them took burgers and joined the party, but the sour-faced lady from apartment 5-E called the security guard on them.

Thirty minutes later the president of the Apartment Board arrived. He waved his hands. “You have no permit for this gathering.”

“This is a religious holiday,” shouted Nassim. “It is the feast of Good-Rama-Eid-Over. We have every right to be here.”

Sheldon handed Nassim a beer and turned up the music. After several minutes of futile fuming and dodging fireworks, the AB president realized there was nothing he could do about the crowd and left.

“That man.” Nassim waved his hands in imitation. “He walk like virgin. Oh no, a noise! I am frightened.”

Sheldon laughed. He knew that walk. He used to walk like that.

“Hi.” Lauren took one of the veggie burgers.

“Oh, hey. I didn’t realize you were here.”

“Oh, Nassim invited me. He says you’re moving out.”

“Yeah.” He still had trouble believing how good burgers tasted, but he supposed it was a side effect of eating almost nothing but nutritional slurry for a decade. “I’ve invested in a business selling GPS devices and protective gear to mountain bikers.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, obviously it’s really dangerous to go biking in places you don’t know well, and sometimes people get lost up in places where they don’t have cell signal. Then they can’t call for help. So I’ll be selling GPSes, helmets, maybe other things. See what people want.”

She smiled. “I guess I should come by your shop sometime.”

“Yeah. I’ll text you the address. We can go riding together. I can show you the best trails.”

“You’ll make sure I don’t get lost?”

“Of course.”

Fireworks exploded at the other end of the courtyard, setting a tree on fire. Gunshots cracked in the distance, followed by sirens. Sheldon wondered if they were celebratory gunshots or the bad kind. Either way, he was glad he was getting out of the city: crime was getting too high around here.

 

/fin

YODO: Wire in a Fire and a Combat Site

Fiction
You Only Die Once: Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapters 3&4, Chapter 5

Chapter 6: Wire in a Fire and a Combat Site

Sheldon was released from the hospital four hours later, following two x-rays, a CT scan, and extensive bandaging. James came to pick him up, muttering, “Can I possibly convince you not to kill yourself?” all the way back to his apartment.

“I wasn’t trying to die,” said Sheldon. The nurse said he was very lucky to still have most of his skin after skidding down the street like a human on a cheese grater. The explosion had knocked him off the bike, landed him in a pile of rubble and broken his arm, but thankfully his head was okay and he hadn’t suffered a concussion.

“If I ever fall in love, preemptively institutionalize me,” said James.

The car halted in front of Sheldon’s apartment. “Can you get the door? My arm won’t bend.”

James came around to his side of the car and helped him into the building. “They’re calling it a terrorist attack, you know.”

“Calling what?” Sheldon hobbled slowly toward the elevators. Most of his left side was bandaged. He leaned against the wall and pressed the Up button. He didn’t feel like taking the stairs today, cardiovascular health or no.

James’s hands twitched when he talked. “The explosion.” He was always jittery, but high explosives made it worse.

“They’re calling a bunch of fireworks a terrorist attack?” The elevator arrived with a ding.

“Fireworks?” James punched the buttons for him. “The whole parking garage exploded. You’re lucky you didn’t get crushed. They’re saying thermonitrite, maybe a fertilizer bomb. A big one.”

Sheldon sighed. “James, you don’t even watch the news. It was just some kids playing with fireworks.”

“Shit, everyone knows they don’t put the real news on the news. They don’t want people to panic–there‘d be carnage.” James held the door when they reached his floor. “Anyway, it didn’t have anything to do with that party you went to–it’s the gang war between the Jaifijians and Quotidians. Someone was trying to blow up a rival gang leader and took out the whole parking garage with him.” 

Sheldon shook his head and sank onto the couch. “Thanks for bringing me home.”

“No problem, man,” said James. He had gone into the kitchen to rummage around in the cupboards. He returned a few minutes later with drinks for both of them. “Here. Drink up. Hydration is important. I brought over a list of nootropics and other supplements my gym bros recommend for healing after an accident and put put it up on your refrigerator. Be sure to pick up the L-glutamate tomorrow before work. You can mix it with your slurry.”

“Okay.” Sheldon didn’t really feel like talking, so they turned on the news and drank in silence. James had been right; the parking garage had collapsed. “Why would they do that?” he muttered to himself, so James decided to enlighten him on the history of Lifijian and Western Quotidian race relations.

Sheldon woke the next morning at dawn. His head hurt, his arm was in a cast, and the TV was still on in the living room. He poured coffee in his slurry and ignored the list of instructions James had left for him on the refrigerator. All right, so he’d been dumb. He admitted that. Well, everyone was dumb sometimes. But at least he’d tried.

He went onto the porch to watch the sunrise. Something felt different. Sure, he was in pain, but that wasn’t it. He felt alive.

He drank his coffee and listened to the birds. The news droned in the background, but he didn’t feel like listening. Everything on the TV seemed dull and unconvincing compared to the warm cup in his hand, the bitter taste in his mouth, the sunlight pouring through the clouds and the birds on the railing.

There was something about nearly dying that put the life into you, he realized. He wanted to go back, to ride again. This was an idiotic thought, he knew. He’d just broken his arm riding a bike. But the thought remained.

Of course he couldn’t do anything while his arm was in a cast. He went to work, drank weird-tasting slurry, and watched his daily ration of news. His skin began to heal, making him itch. Bombings were becoming more frequent. Even the news anchors seemed to admit that things weren’t entirely perfect. He felt anxious, but terrorists from Alybia had driven a fertilizer bomb into the Department of Justice and blown it up, killing two thousand people, so who wouldn’t feel anxious?

The president made some impressive speeches from the deck of a CVN-78 aircraft carrier about the importance of Freedom, Safety, and Prosperity. “We must take the fight to our enemies in their homelands so they don’t have a chance to bring their war to ours,” he bellowed, looking very impressive in his camouflage flight suit. Sheldon still felt confused about some of the finer points of the war, since wasn’t even sure where Alydia was on the map, much less why they were in a fight.

James was in his element, calling him daily after work to update him on their movement of troops in Surdistan. Surdistan wasn’t even part of Alydia, but James reassured him that there were important terrorists in Surfistan, too. “We have to strike them wherever they are,” he said. “Wherever they go, we will hunt them down. We will track them to the ends of the earth, no matter the cost–”

“What is the cost of all this?” James checked his bank account. Things were getting expensive. Rent was up, he now had to pay for terrorism insurance, and taxes were going up to pay for the war.

“Only two, maybe 3-4-5 trillion dollars,” said James. “Peanuts, really. Okay, so it’s the size of the entire federal budget, but you can’t put a price on life, Sheldon.”

“No cost is too high?”

“If there’s even a chance we can stop the terrorists and save a life, we have to do it,” said James. “We’ll pay any price.”

Sheldon nodded, but the calculation seemed off. He knew you couldn’t bring back the dead, that he ought to be willing to bear the cost of saving a life, but still, a voice nagged at the back of his head. He wanted to get married someday. He wanted a wife, a house, and children. He lived frugally and saved diligently, but he knew raising a kid cost over $300,000–before college–but he didn’t have anywhere near that much money. Between the accident and the tax increase, he would be lucky if he could save anything this month.

He felt sick of it all, the taste of grit returning to his mouth. What was the point? “I have to go.” He flipped off the telelink and left the apartment. He didn’t really have a destination; he just wanted to go out. To move. To breathe.

The next day he filed the paperwork for a bicycle license, solemnly swore before a Department of Vehicles worker to always wear a helmet and never ride on a road, and bought the best mountain bike his local store had for sale. A cheaper bike might have been just as good, but if this thing was going to be the only protection between him and thousands of rocks, he might as well get the extended warranty and accident protection.

An hour later, Sheldon was riding.

It wasn’t that bad, now that he had real breaks and functional handlebars.

There was a dedicated bike trail at the local park, one of the few places you could legally ride in the city. This was his favorite time of day, when the afternoon sun slanted through the trees like gold and the distant clouds looked like grey mountains. The wheels hummed beneath him, vibrating slightly on the smooth path. He huffed up the hill then coasted down the other side, feeling the wind on his face. He felt himself flowing through them and they through him.

Slurry tasted plain in the morning, but it didn’t matter. He had a plan. After work he returned to the park, building his confidence. On Saturday, he headed to the mountain trails and rode until his legs ached. Yes, it was dangerous. Yes, he fell. Yes, it was an expensive bike, but realistically, he didn’t have the money for kids, anyway, so he might as well spend his savings. (He still didn’t know how Nassim managed to raise three kids on public assistance.) But when he rode he flowed through the mountains and the mountains flowed through him and he felt more alive than he ever had before. At night he dreamed of stars pouring out of the Milky Way and miles melting beneath him.

***

“Oy mate, you got a license for that bike?”

Sheldon had just unloaded the bike from his Uber and was wheeling it up the path to his apartment when two police officers appeared. One grabbed his bike while the other pulled out a notepad. “We got a call from a lady in your building about a man riding recklessly on the sidewalk.”

“I never ride on the sidewalk–”

“So you’ve been riding in the street?”

“No, but–”

“Gotta see that license, buddy.”

“It’s in my bag, I’ll get it for you–”

“No, don’t move. Give me the bag. I’ll get it.”

Sheldon grudgingly handed the officer his bag. After a few minutes of rummaging, they pulled out the license. “This doesn’t look like you.”

“I had a haircut.”

There was shouting and scuffling on the opposite side of the street. Sheldon craned his neck to see around the cars. “Hey, I think something’s going on–”

“We have to confiscate your bike,” said the first officer.

“Wait, what?”

“Riding on the sidewalk, riding in the street, failure to update your license following a personal appearance change–you’re lucky we don’t write you two tickets.”

“But I didn’t–” Sheldon watched sadly as the police wheeled his bike away to their squad car. He looked down at the ticket in his hand. “Dammit.”

The scuffle continued on the other side of the street, unnoticed by the cops. Sheldon stuffed his license, bicycle repair kit, and first aid supplies back in his bag. Who the hell reported him? And why?

Someone screamed on the other side of the street. Sheldon grabbed his bag and darted between the cars. Two guys ran off, leaving a third bleeding on the sidewalk.

“You okay?” The guy’s arm was bleeding pretty badly, so he grabbed a bandage from his first aid kit and started applying pressure.

“Yeah, I think so.” He sat up, rubbing his head.

“You should get to the hospital, get that stitched up.” He waited with the guy until the ambulance came, then went back to his own apartment. At least his first aid kit had been good for something.

 

YODO: Ladder starts to Clatter with a Fear of Heights

Fiction

Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapters 3&4

Chapter 5: The Ladder starts to Clatter

Somehow Karen (who was actually named Lauren), Nassim, and Sheldon ended up sitting across from each other at the rickety picnic benches in Nassim’s courtyard. Lauren and Nassim laughed over some obscure joke while Sheldon poked at his food. The burgers were simultaneously burned (literally) on the outside, raw on the inside, and absolutely disgusting.

Nassim elbowed him. “Go ahead. Try it.”

“I don’t… I don’t eat cows,” said Sheldon.

“It’s only part of a cow,” said Lauren, halfway through her own burger. “Ohmigod, this is delicious.”

He eyed the spicy chicken livers. There was no way any of this was going in his mouth.

“You have to try it,” said Lauren. She had speared a chicken liver with her fork and was staring at him expectantly. Sheldon poked his burger. How was he supposed to hold this thing? Maybe he could take just one bite–for politeness’s sake–and be done with it.

The burger crumbled as he bit into it, half melting in his mouth. This was… amazing. Yes, parts of it were burned and parts of it were crusty and most of it he definitely did not want to think about, but there was this juice and this flavor and… he couldn’t even describe it. “I think this is the most wonderful thing I have ever eaten,” said Sheldon.

“Sure beats slurry, doesn’t it?” She popped one of the livers in her mouth. “Oh, that’s spicy.”

“Well, I don’t know if I’d say that,” he tried to mutter around the burger. “Slurry has its benefits. It’s ethically sourced, carbon neutral, doesn’t require murdering sentient creatures…” The burger disappeared and he found himself compulsively licking his fingers. What the hell was he doing? He grabbed a napkin and wiped them clean like a civilized person.

“I can’t say much for the liver,” said Lauren, “but the zucchini is worth a try.”

“Right, zucchini.” He eyed the grilled strips of vegetables. He was probably going to get cancer from all of these carcinogens. “So, uh. I think we live in the same building. I see you heading to work sometimes.”

“And at the bodega,” she said.

“Oh. Yeah.” He took a bite of the zucchini. Whoah. Did choking hazards always taste this good, or was nearly burning all of your food to cinders a form of magic? “I volunteer on Sundays, teaching English. We were doing a field trip to practice using English in a real-world environment.”

“Really?” Lauren looked impressed.

He decided to chance one of the spicy livers.

Nope.

Some things really were disgusting.

“I told you,” she said.

“Yes.” His mouth was on fire. He desperately wanted to spit it out, but Nassim and Lauren were both watching him. Where were the drinks?

He grabbed the beer. He didn’t want beer; he knew beer was terrible and caused thousands of deaths per year, but it was the only drink on the table and he needed something to wash down the liver.

That was a mistake.

Beer and liver, he realized, were acquired tastes. Thankfully the kids screaming through the courtyard decided to set off a pile of fireworks, distracting Lauren and Nassim.

“What about you? What do you do?” asked Sheldon. He tried to lean nonchalantly against the table. He hoped she hadn’t seen him gagging.

“I work in medical sales.” Somehow she took a sip of the beer. How did she do it? “Ventilators, syringes, masks, PPE–you can never have too much, that’s what I say.”

“Definitely.” He tried to match her sip. If she could drink it, he could too, right? “I’m in IT–data protection. Do you work nearby? I used to see you riding your bike in the mornings.”

“Oh, no, I don’t. I’m was just trying to save money, until those pigs took my bike away. Now I’m stuck paying or walking.” Sip.

“Well, at least you’re safer, now.”

“Safer?” Her eyes narrowed.

“Well, yes. A thousand people a year die in bicycle accidents.”

Her bottle thunked against the table. “You know, there was a study, in China. People were randomly given either a car or a bicycle and then weighed a year later. The people who got the car gained an average of 20 pounds a year over the bicyclists. Six hundred and forty seven thousand people died of heart attacks last year. People who don’t ride bikes will just switch to riding in cars, gain weight, and die.”

Sheldon took a strong drink. “But there was a terrible accident just last month. An electric AI collided with a bicyclist–that’s why the council finally outlawed riding on city streets. The bikes are too small; the AIs can’t see them properly.”

“If the AIs can’t see the bikes, then get rid of the AIs,” fumed Lauren. “Riding bikes is healthier, would save thousands of lives–”

This was a ridiculous argument. “The autonomous cars have cut accident deaths tenfold. You could save thousands of lives just by giving people stationary bikes to ride inside their apartments, where it’s safe–”

“I bet you can’t even ride a bike.” Lauren stood up, angry.

Shit. Sheldon realized he’d fucked up. “That’s not true. I can, I can.” Well, he had ridden one once, at his aunt’s in the country. When he was ten.

“You don’t understand because you haven’t done it.”

Nassim stood up, waving his hands. “Wait. Wait. Calm down. It is not problem.” He pointed to a bike rack in the back of the courtyard. “You can use mine.”

Sheldon stood, not sure if the alcohol was affecting him. Alcohol was known to make people make terrible decisions, and he realized just after he spoke that he had made a big one. “All right. I’ll prove it.”

The courtyard rack was filled with what could only be described as crackhead bikes: no paint, mismatched wheels, and only a fifty/fifty chance of handlebars. At least it was legal to ride here, off the street. Nassim pulled a bike out for him. The wheels spun. That was a good sign.

He mounted shakily. This was a terrible idea–he didn’t even have a bicycle license. He almost got off, but Lauren was staring at him, hands on her hips. He pushed off with his feet and fell immediately. A crowd had gathered by the time he got back up. She was laughing. Nassim helped him back on the bike and gave him a shove.

Sheldon found himself moving much faster than he had expected. It was only by some miracle that nothing was directly in front of him; he pedaled madly, terrified of crashing, desperately hoping the steering would take care of itself.

The bike careened down the path, down the hill, out of control, and for one eternal, transcendent moment everything melted away and he felt nothing but pure fear and exhilaration. He was flying.

Then something exploded.

YODO: Eye of the Hurricane

Fiction

You Only Die Once
Chapter One, Chapter Two

Chapter 3: Eye of the Hurricane

 

“Why do I have to learn this?” Nassim held up a cucumber. “Pick-el.” He waved the produce at the bodega’s refrigerated case and rattled off the names of the rest of the vegetables in his native Upper Paodatian. “Tafaha, zanahoria, ikhowe, filberts, skirlie neeps. Already good names. What learn for? You don’t even eat veg-e-tables. You eat sludge.” 

Sheldon took a deep, calming breath before responding. Yes, studies showed that volunteers lived longer than non-volunteers, but he was beginning to wonder if working with abandoned puppies extended your lifespan more than teaching English to cranky, chain-smoking, 25 year old “teenagers” with two wives and 3 children back in Greater Paolotia.

The bell over the bodega’s door dingled as it opened and the redhead from apartment 57-E swept in. Sheldon didn’t know her name, but he had nicknamed her “Karen.”

“Um. Well. Yes. Obviously you should drink the nutritional shakes.” He picked up a large jar of fruity flavored powder and shook it at Nassim. “Optimally balanced nutrition with no salmonella.”

Nassim opened a refrigerated case and pulled out a transparent tub of glistening chicken livers and shook it back at him. “Nutrition better-er.” Sheldon thought he might vomit.

Karen had picked up a basket and was poking through the collection of mustards and chocolates displayed near the bodega’s entrance. This location had been a regular convenience store offering a variety of nutritional beverages and first aid supplies, but after a terrible hurricane decimated the Jaifijian Archipelago three months ago, a refugee family had moved in and transformed it. Sheldon and Nassim were shopping there because he had thought an opportunity to actually use English in the field would provide more motivation than the classroom, but he now realized had been overly optimistic.

“Dude, why don’t you just talk to her?” Nassim dropped the tub of livers into the basket.

Sheldon turned quickly. “Come on, let’s check out. You can practice numbers.” 

“You practice. You like her; go say hi.”

“I do not.” He put the jar of fruity powder in his basket. Sheldon picked up a box of granola at random and stuffed it into his basket. “It’s just, it’s not safe at night anymore because of the gang war, and the police confiscated her bike so she has to walk home, so I keep an out just in case something goes wrong–”

“Talk talk talk. All you do. No liver, no wonder. Just go talk to her.”

“I can’t do that. That’s sexual harassment. What if she doesn’t want to be talked to? What if she’s deaf and talking to her is a microaggression? I could accidentally traumatize–hey, where are you going?” 

“It is not hard.” Nassim picked up a bunch of carrots. “Watch.” He walked up to her, smiling. “Excuse me, miss.” He pulled out the carrots. “What do you call these… rutabegas?”

Karen smiled. “These are carrots.”

“Care-otes.” Nassim nodded, then pointed to the rest of the produce. “And these?”

“I think those are Zucchini.” She laughed.

“Ah, zucchini, thank you.” He hefted a bag. “You like, zucchini? Good?”

“Oh, I’ve never had zucchini. I just have the nutritional shakes.”

“Never had zucchini?” Nassim put another bag in his basket. “I grill. Make delicious. Delicious! You will love it. Come, 8 o’clock.” He put down the basket and pulled out his phone. “Give me your number and I text you address.”

Sheldon thought he could feel something popping in his inner ear as Karen pulled out her phone and, laughing, agreed to dinner. He didn’t even remember to put the tub of chicken livers back in the refrigerated case before paying for his food and marching angrily into the street.

“Hey, dude.” Nassim caught up with him, smoking already. “See? Easy.”

“What? No!” Sheldon gestured wildly. “Not easy–”

“Whoa.” Nassim caught his arm. “Dinner tomorrow. 8’o clock. You come. We have party.”

Sheldon set down his bag of groceries in shock. “Me?”

“You.” Nassim fished the tub of livers out of the bag and put it in his own. “You come; you meet girl.”

If there was a party, it was happening somewhere in Sheldon’s guts and using his stomach as a trampoline, but he managed to croak out a “Yeah, sure,” before running away.

 

Chapter 4: Listen to Yourself Churn

 

Sheldon almost stayed home. He had showered, dressed, picked out an appropriate gift (a wireless wall lamp), and made it to the lobby of his apartment building when the familiar banners flanking the exit caught his eye:

Act so your actions
May be a Law
For the whole World

Before you go
Stop. Reflect.
Are you being safe?

And, of course, the national motto:

You Only Die Once

Did he really need to go out? No, of course not. Was it safe? Well, every outing carried risk; it was difficult to get into a car accident while sitting on the couch, watching TV.

Sheldon had one foot back in the elevator when his phone began ringing. A phone call? Who used phones to call anyone anymore?

“What’s up?”

“Sheldon!” James’s voice came through loud and much too clear. “I tried the telelink, but you’re not at home. Don’t tell me you’ve gone out–”

Sheldon punched the up button as the elevator left without him. “Well, actually–”

“Have you gone mad? Don’t you know there’s a gang war going on?”

“James, I’m not going to a war, it’s a party–”

“You’re going to a shooting, that’s where you’re going. You know crime rates in Quodatian neighborhoods are astronomical–”

“It’s Greater Quodatian, James. You have to remember these things now,” Sheldon cut in. “And the crime rates are only high because so many of them are unemployed, traumatized refugees. They have to learn English before they can get good jobs, which is why I’ve been volunteering–”

“Volunteering your hide, more like. Just go home and be safe.”

“It is safe, James. I’ll go and prove it.” Sheldon hung up the phone and marched out the door.

He realized immediately upon arrival that he was wrong. He should have stayed home and read up on investment strategies; instead strangers were belching weed in his face and piling half-raw hamburger meat onto his flimsy paper plate. Nassim was flipping zucchinis and chicken livers on the grill while children screamed and threw fireworks across the apartment’s courtyard.

“Nassim, how did you get AB approval?”

“What?” Nassim plunked a bottle of beer next to his plate.

“The Apartment Board. They have to approve–” He winced as a firework went off. “My Apartment’s Board requires three kinds of insurance, a $1,000 deposit and two months advanced notice before they’ll approve a party.”

“I don’t know ‘Apartment Board,'” said Nassim. “I just got grill, invite neighbors.”

Sheldon was about to object when Nassim broke into a grin, threw down his spatula, and ran across the apartment courtyard to greet more guests.

A minute later, one of the burgers caught on fire. Sheldon knew that unlicensed operation of a grill was a misdemeanor punishable with up to a year in jail, but he also knew that he had to take action fast to save everyone near the conflagration. He grabbed the spatula and began whacking the burger, hoping to put out the flames.

He couldn’t tell if things were supposed to be smoking or not. Was that how grills were supposed to work? Well, Nassim had been flipping things, so he tried flipping things. One of the burgers disintegrated, falling through the bars. Oh no. This was why Sheldon didn’t have a grilling license. You were supposed to have a grilling license, grilling disaster insurance, carbon offsets, and get tri-annual grill inspections before you could even think about using a grill, and here he stood with only a spatula between the open flames and the lives of hundreds of innocent families who lived inside the building–

“Hey, Sheldon, get this lady a burger.”

“Oh! Kar–I mean, hi.” He just barely managed to slide one of the burgers and a zucchini onto probably-not-actually-named-Karen’s plate. “Nassim, you can’t leave me here, I don’t have a grilling license, and–” More fireworks popped off. “Why are they juggling fireworks!?”

Nassim laughed. “Just relax. Have fun. You only live once, you know.”

You Only Die Once: Birds and Snakes and Aeroplanes

Fiction

You Only Die Once

Chapter 2: Birds and Snakes and Aeroplanes

After a murderous quantity of dickering in the Senatorial House (Minister Graham was concerned about inadequate health funding for the nation’s hospitals), the first airplane load of Laostitian orphans arrived to universal applause. The cheering crowds waved banners with “We love you” written in a dozen languages (hopefully whatever language the Blaostatians spoke was among them, but no one seemed really sure) as each child disembarked. Sheldon watched the festivities remotely, because crowds were dangerous to your health. He expected the government to move in quickly to break up such a large gathering, but the police were oddly missing.

As each child was processed, stamped, and passed to a waiting family that had volunteered to foster the newcomers, Sheldon felt an unusual sensation in his chest. At first he thought it was the coffee affecting his heart, but after the screen switched to a live feed of the pretty news anchor hugging orphans, he realized it was something else: pride. His society had done something good. He had done something good. These children would have great lives.

The math was simple. People in his country enjoyed an average life expectancy of 88 years. The average life expectancy in Baostatia was only 68 years. One million Baodatian orphans would, therefore, gain 20 million—

“Can you believe it?” His friend James’s voice blared into the room.

“Volume, James!” shouted Sheldon, covering his ears.

“Sorry, sorry.” James fiddled with his microphone. They had been friends since middle school, when James had caught Sheldon trying to sneak into the girls’ room, then used this information to blackmail him into playing video games with him. “Can you believe it? They’re importing an entire army.”

“What are you talking about?” Sheldon set down his breakfast.

“Ew,” said James. “How do you eat that stuff?”

“Nutritional slurry is ethically sourced and 100% balanced nutrition.”

“It’s 50% cricket.”

“Ethically sourced crickets,” said Sheldon.

“I only eat tofu, like a real man,” said James.

“Everyone knows tofu is full of phytoestrogens that mess with your endocrine system, dude. Just eat the bugs.”

“Like I need an endocrine system. Who would bring kids into this world, anyway?” said James. “But whatever. It doesn’t matter when the government is importing an army of foreign mercenaries to replace us.”

Sheldon sighed and put his dishes in the sink. James always talked about politics but never watched the news, which made him frustratingly wrong about everything. “They’re children, James. Orphans.”

“Children?” James turned his camera to zoom in on his own TV screen. Grainy images of disembarking refugees flickered at an angle. “Do those look like children? That guy is at least thirty years old.”

“One, that’s not how you share videos and two, I need to get ready for work.” Sheldon put on his jacket and checked his watch. Five minutes to go.

“Oh, sure, rub it in my face, mister actually has a job.”

“Yes, I do, and it’s important.” Sheldon picked up his briefcase. He did IT for a major union, making sure important worker safety documentation didn’t get stolen. James was still hoping to make it big as gaming blogger, but he had his doubts about this plan.

“Fine, I’ll text you. the video. You can watch it during lunch. I’ve got a PDF about Lower Paodatian crimes stats you need to read, too. Those aren’t kids, Sheldon. You’re being lied to. Something really weird is going on.”

“All right, I’ll watch it later. Got to go.” He flicked off the camera and headed out. Of course he wouldn’t; he never watched James’s weird conspiracy videos, but he pretended to because James was basically a good friend.

Sheldon took the elevator down to the ground floor. Perfect timing; his rideshare arrived just as he exited the building. Now that everyone in the city had switched from owning private gas guzzlers to sharing autonomous electrics, pollution and traffic had almost entirely disappeared.

The streets buzzed with low-key excitement, people milling about with no obvious purpose. They seemed as happy about the orphans’ arrival as Sheldon had felt twenty minutes before.

A bell bringed as a bicycle approached. Sheldon frowned. Biking was dangerous. Over a thousand people a year died in bicycle accidents, and they messed with the cars’ algorithms. Why did the government even let people ride bicycles in the city? He stared angrily as the bicyclist rolled past, legs pumping idiotically, red hair streaming like a banner. Her green eyes met his and he was struck like a bird with an arrow.

Sheldon was in love.

To be continued…

 

 

 

It Starts with an Earthquake

Fiction

You Only Die Once

Chapter One: It Starts with an Earthquake

The earthquake struck at 2:34 in the morning in some far-off country Sheldon wasn’t entirely convinced was a real place and not just an elaborate con by geographers. Lemuria, or maybe Liplodia. Or nearby Diplodia. He heard about it on the 6 AM news while drinking his morning coffee–scientists had recently determined that the net health benefits of coffee outweighed its downsides, so he drank the recommended one cup a day of bitterness.

The pink-haired news anchor began weeping beautiful tears as footage of children being pulled from Diplodica’s ruins rolled in. “With the Aplodican hospital system overloaded and little hope for the people still buried in the wreckage, officials estimate the death toll will top a million by nightfall. 15 million people are now homeless; 45 million have no water or electricity. 10 million children–” 

Sheldon flicked off the news. Emotional distress was bad for the heart. He was surprised they even let humans report the news anymore, given that they’d developed perfectly good robots who could analyze the news for them without incurring any stress.

The TV flicked itself back on. Of course. It was set to deliver 30 minutes of news a day, because the politically aware live longer than the politically unaware. Well, that didn’t count during a disaster, did it? He flicked it off again.

It turned back on.

Sheldon turned away to begin preparing his perfectly balanced nutritional breakfast while the pretty news anchor wept over the fate of Alodica’s orphans.

The news mercifully winked off as a call came in. His grandmother’s face replaced the pretty news anchor’s. “Have you heard the news?”

“Yes, Gram.” Sheldon quickly switched off the fox-girl filter. It just looked weird on his grandmother.

“15 million children without homes, can you imagine?” Her eyes looked red.

“Yes, Gram.” He drank his nutritional slurry. “Try not to worry about it. You know worrying isn’t good for your heart–”

“Don’t tell me about my heart,” she snapped. “Go call Minister Graham. He’s your representative. I’ve already texted you the information. Tell him you support Proposition 1452 for the immediate aid and relief of Laodicans, no, demand that he immediately support Proposition 14–”

“Gram, it’s okay. Calm down.”

“Young man, I will not calm down until you promise me that you will not just let those poor children suffer–”

“All right, all right. I’ll write to the Minister. Have you had your vitamins?”

“Yes of course.” She frowned in annoyance. “I’m not five, you know.”

“Yes, you’re 85 years old and as you know–”

“Just call the Minister before those children die, young man. It’s your duty.” The screen went black.

 

 

Chapter 2: Birds and Snakes and Aeroplanes

After a murderous quantity of dickering in the Senatorial House (Minister Graham was concerned about inadequate health funding for the nation’s hospitals), the first airplane load of Laostitian orphans arrived to universal applause. The cheering crowds waved banners with “We love you” written in a dozen languages (hopefully whatever language the Blaostatians spoke was among them, but no one seemed really sure) as each child disembarked. Sheldon watched the festivities remotely, because crowds were dangerous to your health. He expected the government to move in quickly to break up such a large gathering, but the police were oddly missing.

As each child was processed, stamped, and passed to a waiting family that had volunteered to foster the newcomers, Sheldon felt an unusual sensation in his chest. At first he thought it was the coffee affecting his heart, but after the screen switched to a live feed of the pretty news anchor hugging orphans, he realized it was something else: pride. His society had done something good. He had done something good. These children would have great lives.

***

I will post more when I have written more.

Noise, Noise, Noise

Noise is a the foe of any information transmission, yet the total elimination of noise is–counter-intuitively–bad.

Nature is, from our human perspective, inherently noisy, and this noise is inherent to its beauty. When we try to over-fit a simple order we get something that is, yes, lined up neatly, but also dead.

Nature is not truly noisy, but the mathematics that underlies its order is more complicated than we can easily model (it is only in the past century that we’ve developed the tools necessary to model tomorrow’s weather with any degree of accuracy, for example.) Whether we are drawing trees or clouds, controlled randomness works far better than regular repetition. (If you want to get technical, the math involved tends to involve fractals.)

In photography, dithering is the intentional application of noise to randomize quantitization errors. According to Wikipedia:

Dither is routinely used in processing of both digital audio and video data, and is often one of the last stages of mastering audio to a CD.

A common use of dither is converting a greyscale image to black and white, such that the density of black dots in the new image approximates the average grey level in the original.

…[O]ne of the earliest [applications] of dither came in World War II. Airplane bombers used mechanical computers to perform navigation and bomb trajectory calculations. Curiously, these computers (boxes filled with hundreds of gears and cogs) performed more accurately when flying on board the aircraft, and less well on ground. Engineers realized that the vibration from the aircraft reduced the error from sticky moving parts. Instead of moving in short jerks, they moved more continuously. Small vibrating motors were built into the computers, and their vibration was called dither from the Middle English verb “didderen,” meaning “to tremble.” Today, when you tap a mechanical meter to increase its accuracy, you are applying dither, and modern dictionaries define dither as a highly nervous, confused, or agitated state. In minute quantities, dither successfully makes a digitization system a little more analog in the good sense of the word.

— Ken Pohlmann, Principles of Digital Audio^[1]

The term dither was published in books on analog computation and hydraulically controlled guns shortly after World War II.^[2][3] 

This mechanical dithering is also why many people play “white noise” sounds while studying or falling asleep (my eldest used to fall asleep to the sound of the shower). As the article notes:

Quantization yields error. If that error is correlated to the signal, the result is potentially cyclical or predictable. In some fields, especially where the receptor is sensitive to such artifacts, cyclical errors yield undesirable artifacts. In these fields introducing dither converts the error to random noise. The field of audio is a primary example of this. The human ear functions much like a Fourier transform, wherein it hears individual frequencies.^[8][9] The ear is therefore very sensitive to distortion, or additional frequency content, but far less sensitive to additional random noise at all frequencies such as found in a dithered signal.^[10]

In digital audio, like CDs, dithering reduces the distortion caused by data compression (a necessary part of the process of producing CDs). The same process works in digital photography, as demonstrated in these photos:

from Wikipedia

In art, dithering allows artists to create a wide range of colors out of a limited palette (this is, of course, how the colors in newspaper comics are created).

There are many different ways to dither, and subsequently many different dithering algorithms, all created with the intention of using random noise to increase the quality of images/sound/readings, etc.

Too much noise is of course a problem, but as photographer Frederik Mork notes:

Don’t forget that noise can also be a creative tool. Especially when paired with black-and-white, high ISO noise can sometimes add a lot of atmosphere to the image. Some images need noise.

Symmetrical faces are supposed to be more attractive than less-symmetrical faces, but this only applies up to a point. Even very beautiful faces are not truly symmetrical, and increasing their symmetricality (by mirroring the left side over the right, or the right side over the left) does not improve them:

Nicole Kidman

I don’t know where this image came from originally, but I found it in a YouTube video.  There is a literature on this subject, probably primarily related to plastic surgery. The image on the left is a Nicole as she normally appears; the image in the center is Nicole with the right side of her face mirrored, an the image on the right is the left side of her face. Note that the original contains several asymmetries: her hair, her eyebrows, and even the way her necklace lies on her chest.

This post was inspired by a conversation about what it meant to be a “good” musician, and whether one can be a reasonable judge of music outside of one’s own musical tastes. If I love rap but hate techno, can I still recognize which techno songs are considered “good” by some standard other than “techno fans like it”? Is all art subjective, or are some pieces actually better or worse than others?

I am a simple creature, and I do not really understand the depths of what goes into creating music. I can squeak out a few notes on a recorder and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star on the piano, but deeper theories behind things like “harmonic intervals” and “chords” are beyond me. Music to me is an immersive sensory experience (more so since quarantine has induced a state of semi-zen that has quieted the normally very loud meta and meta-meta narrative in my head). Whether something is good or bad I cannot say in any quantitative sense, but to paraphrase the words of Justice Stewart, I know it when I feel it.

I had very little exposure to popular music as a kid (I listened to a lot of “Christian rock”), and only began listening to music seriously and sorting out what I liked and didn’t in grad school, so whatever arguments you have about people forming their musical taste in highschool don’t apply.

I tend to like music that has a lot of distortion–noise, if you will. (I like music that reflect what I feel, and my feelings look like a Jackson Pollock.)

You might have noticed that my current favorite musician is Gary Numan (the guy who sang “Cars” back in 1979.) I don’t like most of Numan’s early work (like “Cars”); the sound is too simple. It took a couple of decades for Numan to develop the layers of complexity and necessary to create the sort of musical soundscape I enjoy. Compare, for example, his 1979 performance of “Are Friends Electric” to his 2013 performance of the same song. They are the same song, but with slightly different arrangements; I don’t know the technical words to describe them, but I find the 1979 version merely acceptable, while the 2013 hit me like a brick. (That’s a good thing, in this context.)

Or, heck, let’s compare Cars 1979, with Cars 2009 (with NIN). Okay, so the first thing that stands out to me is that 2009 Gary Numan has gotten laid and is no longer afraid to move around the stage, unlike 1979 Numan. Second, Trent Reznor on the tambourine is hilarious. Third, there is WAY more noise in the second recording–especially since it is live and there is a screaming audience–and this does not detract from the experience: I vastly prefer the 2009 version.

One of the things I love about Numan’s music is that you can do this; you can listen to the same piece from different eras and see how his style has changed and evolved.

To really appreciate his new new style, though, I think it’s best to listen to new compositions, rather than covers of his older work, like I am Dust, Ghost Nation, or Crazier (with Rico).

Music, as I understand it, is built from a disturbed mathematical progression of sounds. A sequence of sounds in a regular pattern builds up our expectation of what will come next, and the violation of this sequence creates surprise, which–when done properly–our brains enjoy. If the pattern simply repeated over and over, it would become boring.

I recently enjoyed a documentary on Netflix about ZZ Top, (who knows, maybe they’ll become my favorite band someday). At one point in the documentary the band described the difficulties of their first recording session. They had their song, had their band, had their instruments, but the guy doing the recording just couldn’t capture the right sound. He had microphones all around the recording studio, but just couldn’t get what he wanted. So he proposed that the band loosen the strings on their guitars (or maybe it was just one guitar, forgive me, it’s been a while) to create a slightly out of tune sound. The band’s manager was having nothing of it: the instruments needed to be in tune. Finally the recording studio guy proposed that the manager run out to get them some barbecue, because it was getting on toward dinner time, and conveniently directed the manager to a restaurant across the county line, a good half hour away. With the manager gone for the next hour and fifteen minutes, they untuned the guitars and finally got the sound they were looking for.

(Here’s ZZ Top’s Sharp Dressed Man.)

Is this a “better” sound? It’s a different sound. It’s not the standard sound, and if you’re looking for the standard sound that guitars are supposed to make, this isn’t it. Is it wrong, on technical grounds? Or is it right because it was the sound the band wanted to make?

This whole post was inspired by the claim that Kurt Cobain was, technically, not a good musician. I found this accusation absolutely flabbergasting. Of course, I regard pretty much anyone who can crank out a tune on a guitar as “good”, and anyone who can top the charts as “excellent” by default. If we want to differentiate between top stars, well, I guess we can, but in the immortal words of @dog_rates, they’re all good dogs, Brent.

I’m not a huge Nirvana fan–like I said, I never listened to them as a kid (I didn’t have MTV and couldn’t have told you the difference between Pearl Jam and Oyster Jelly), but I like grunge and Nirvana is part of that.

After some conversation, I realized that my interlocutor and I were using different definitions of “technically,” which is always a sign that you should stop arguing about dumb stuff on the internet and go take a walk, except when you’re quarantined. I meant “technically” as in “actually,” while he meant it in the sense of “the proper way of doing something; by the manual.” His argument was that Kurt Cobain did not play the guitar properly according to the manual for how to play a guitar. Kurt was dropping notes, or not pushing down the strings properly, or otherwise playing lazily and not doing it right. Someone who has taken lessons on “how to play a guitar” will not be able to play like Kurt because he was being sloppy and not playing properly. They will have to learn how to be sloppy.

Naturally, I found this argument baffling. I have no idea how to play the guitar, but my standard for whether a piece of music is good or not is based on how it sounds, not how it is produced. I am listening to Nirvana now and I don’t hear–to my ears–any flaws.

To say that there is a “proper” way to play a guitar that is a standard benchmark against which musicians are judged sounds like some sort of  prescriptivist nonsense. It’s like saying that there is a proper way to paint, and that “impressionism” isn’t it:

Monet’s Impression, Sunrise

An outraged critic, Louis Leroy, coined the label “Impressionist.” He looked at Monet’s Impression Sunrise, the artist’s sensory response to a harbor at dawn, painted with sketchy brushstrokes. “Impression!” the journalist snorted. “Wallpaper in its embryonic state is more finished!” Within a year, the name Impressionism was an accepted term in the art world.

If the name was accepted, the art itself was not. “Try to make Monsieur Pissarro understand that trees are not violet; that the sky is not the color of fresh butter…and that no sensible human being could countenance such aberrations…try to explain to Monsieur Renoir that a woman’s torso is not a mass of decomposing flesh with those purplish-green stains,” wrote art critic Albert Wolff after the second Impressionist exhibition.

Although some people appreciated the new paintings, many did not. The critics and the public agreed the Impressionists couldn’t draw and their colors were considered vulgar. Their compositions were strange. Their short, slapdash brushstrokes made their paintings practically illegible. Why didn’t these artists take the time to finish their canvases, viewers wondered?

Indeed, Impressionism broke every rule of the French Academy of Fine Arts, the conservative school that had dominated art training and taste since 1648.

The “proper” way to play a guitar is however sounds good, and if it sounds better with dropped notes and imperfectly depressed strings, then that is the proper way to play. This is grunge, and grunge is intentionally high on the distortion.

Whether it sounds good or not is, of course, a matter of opinion, but Smells Like Teen Spirit has over a billion views on YouTube, so I think it’s fair to say that there are a lot of people out there who think this is a very good song. From their perspective, Kurt Cobain is a very talented musician.

There’s a saying that you have to learn the rules in order to know when to break the rules. It applies primarily in art and literature, but I suppose it applies to the rest of life, too. When you are learning to write, you learn the rules of grammar and punctuation. If you become a poet, you know when and how to throw all of that out the window. If you want to be an artist, you need to know how to paint; later you can throw together whatever colors you want. If you want to play music, then you need to learn to play properly–harmonic intervals and all that, I suppose–but when you actually play music, you need to know when to break the rules and how subtle differences in the way the notes are played result in massive differences in the music. Compare, for example, NIN’s Hurt to Johnny Cash’s.

This is a song that gets its power from our subverted expectations; we expect an increase in tempo that never really comes, creating a tension that stretches out across the song, finally breaking at 4:33 (in Trent’s version).

In these two songs, I think Trent’s version is “better” in the technical skills sense, but Cash’s version is better in the absolute punch in the guts sense. This is simply because of who Trent and Cash are; they each bring their own sense of self to the song: Trent the sense of a bitter youth; Cash the sense of an old man composing his epitaph.

Let us end with some Alice in Chains:

I hope you have enjoyed the songs.