When I was growing up, Halloween seemed magical. (Not just because it was a time that ghosts and witches were imagined to be real, and not just because as kids we could knock on the doors of neighbours and strangers, who subsequently gave us candy that we were allowed to eat.) Every Halloween, during our trick-or-treating years, my mother was able to conjure costumes for my siblings and me out of thin fabric.
I remember (sometimes on Halloween, itself) my mom coming home from work and asking us what we’d like to be as though anything was possible. If we couldn’t think of something, she would suggest some options from her magic workshop, and then upon us making our selections from the future, she would set about creating them. I think that may have been my favourite part—watching my mom create something out of nothing recognizable was both exciting and, in retrospect, inspiring.
For the Halloween in which I was seven years old, the small town we were living in was feeling rather rainy. So, after work, my mom asked my dad to go to the store to buy a collection of as many coloured garbage bags as he could find, and then, as always, she turned to those of her children still of trick-or-treating age and asked what we’d like to be.
A few hours later, we travelled into the damp night wearing costumes that were intricately-detailed as always, but also shiny in the dark, and perfectly rain proof because they were made out of plastic bags. The next day, at school, all students in the elementary school were taken in our costumes on a parade of the city. It was still raining, and so while some of my classmates moaned about water-logged limbs, I remember smiling around every sparkling puddle.
Perhaps in part due to my warm mood, I won the costume contest (I think it was for the whole school, but my memory might be exaggerating for effect), and I was given a decent prize for it, too. If I may boast for a moment, I was aware that it was unjust for me to win an award for my mother’s talent, and I told her, at the time, that I thought she should get the proceeds, but she insisted that I’d earned it by wearing the costume so well. I’m glad to say that I wasn’t convinced. (In retrospect, I now like to think I learned something that day about how the world sometimes rewards the wrong people.)
Growing up, my siblings and I knew that my mom could create anything because the evidence was always around us. Instead of buying a Barbie camper or Hot Wheels race track, my mom built them for us, and they were better than the ones on TV. I think as a result I see creativity not merely as an expression of one’s individuality, but more significantly, as a means by which to solve a problem.
It seems to me that some want to instill creativity in youngsters by telling them they can create anything and then praising whatever they produce. Perhaps this works for some, but it certainly wouldn’t have worked on me. I have never had a natural talent for putting things together, and I was smart enough as a kid to recognize that my four much-more-skilled siblings could produce results much more impressive than my own. But that doesn’t mean I’m not creative. When I see a problem now, I am able to imagine plenty of possible solutions (and then to choose from them the option that could actually fit my particular limitations).
For instance, when I was in university, I was invited to a costume party with the theme of “white trash.” I was offended by the idea, and yet I wanted to attend the gathering, so I found a white garbage bag, and with a few incisions, turned it into a shirt. It was the least impressive costume at the event, but it may have been the most creative. I’d learned from the best.
Since publishing the transcript of my delightful (yet oddly, not-yet-gone-viral) rant against biased weather journalists, which was first uttered many suns ago on my pre-podcasting-era “radio” show, Life and Seth (on SethFM), I have received a request from my former producer (also named Seth) to publish the video of that original rant here. I am happy to do so in honour of the recently retired CKNW comedic grouch, Neil Macrae, after whom ranting Seth was patterned.
But I should warn you—before I leave you to your enjoyment and agreement—that I was “broadcasting” for radio, not television, which means that, while the rant was on videotape, my attention was focussed on my voice instead of any special eye contact with the audience. In fact, the only reason the footage is on video is because my video camera possessed the best audio recorder at SethFM headquarters.
In the interest of full disclosure—and Seth-promotion—the spirt of this rant, and other works of Sethiquette, is now available in my book, How to Cure Yourself of Narcissism.
SETHITOR’S NOTE: Apparently, at the time of this post, SethBlogs used the term “social networking” to refer specifically to social media participation. This seems wrong to SethBlogs now (April 2021), as it seems to current SethBlogs that “social networking” could refer to non-digital socializing, too, but I don’t recall if the apparent error was a SethBlogs-original, or if he was copying consensus. As such I’ll leave the odd phrasing in because it may be capturing an intriguing moment in our linguistic history.
On the radio stations I listen to (CKNW and CBC), there have been several interviews recently featuring pundits decrying the anti-social nature of my home metro city of Vancouver. Apparently, we metro Vancouverites aren’t very friendly, or at least it’s difficult to make friends here, and many people are feeling disconnected. In each such discussion, callers to the radio shows have boasted of their methods of increasing interactions with their neighbours.
In one case, a man was so fed up with his friends’ anti-social tendencies that he was now standing up to them.
“They want me to text them instead of at least talking to me on the phone,” he complained to the soothing verbal nods of the radio pundits.
So he’s started a program in which he bakes cookies, and then takes himself on a mission to visit with his friends at their homes.
“About 50% of them didn’t like that I’d arrived unannounced,” he said, “so no cookies for them.”
From there, he explained that his goal was to give his friends a break from whatever project they were working on: who, after all, didn’t have 15 minutes to talk face to face and maybe share a cup of tea?
This cookie ferry was lauded by the radio pundits as someone who was showing merry creativity in his efforts to truly reconnect with his world.
On a rival radio station, meanwhile, a man called in to say that he, too, is an advocate of increased social interaction and so he tries to talk to people on the bus even though—he acknowledged sadly—in nine times out of ten he is rebuffed. In this case, the radio pundits were upset that the social hero had been so mistreated by snobby bus travelers, and they claimed to hope he would maintain his good spirits in pursuit of his good fight.
Such negative results proved, it seemed, that Vancouver was indeed an unfriendly city where making friends is a daunting pursuit. And apparently it’s getting worse! The highest percentage of people who find friendship-making a challenge are in the young demographic of 25-34 year-olds. This was especially sad to the pundits since, after all, within such youth there should be the greatest promise and opportunity.
But, just a for moment, might we consider the possibility that 25-34 year olds perceive difficulty in making friends because they no longer have the free-friendship-making services of school, and they haven’t yet learned how to acquire friends in other places? Or maybe this particular crop of 25-34 year-olds, compared with previous generations, has been nurtured into assuming that they deserve a large collection of friends at all times.
“And this,” one pundit remarked, “in spite of social networking.”
The implication of course being that social networking is a false form of human connection; indeed, the pundit now had proof that social networkers were ultimately dissatisfied in spite of their lofty technical connections. The pundit did not consider any other alternative such as, say, perhaps social networkers in that age group are spoiled by the ease of virtual interactions and so they mistakenly assume that it will be equally easy out in the face-to-face world, too.
Perhaps our city would benefit from greater social engagement than we have, and maybe social networking is hindering more than it’s helping. But if we’re not willing to scientifically interpret the evidence beyond simply taking as gospel a particular group’s self-assessment that they’re lonely, then we really have no way of knowing.
There seems to be an unassailable agreement amongst social interaction pundits that face-to-face meeting with human beings is always better than any other form of communication. Why? Have they never been to a gathering where the conversation is stilted, boring, or overpowered by a narcissist? Do they never wish they were home reading a book, or even watching TV? Moreover, some people are introverts, which I understand means that, unlike extroverts, they are not energized by socializing, so maybe they require less in-person visiting than those who love to be around people. Perhaps, for some people, social media allows them to engage while still possessing an immediate escape route.
And what about the benefits of engagement provided by digital communication? Each of these unholy media, from phoning, to texting, to emailing, to tweeting has the power to set up plans to meet more efficiently than traditional communication. Imagine how cumbersome it would be to set up a friendly flash mob without the internet.
Ultimately, I think new forms of communication give us more choice. Maybe today, as the pundits complained, we don’t know our next-door neighbours as well as we used to, but at the same time, instead of acquiring friendships merely based on proximity, we can now interact with people with whom we have something particularly in common, even if they live on another continent. Yes, perhaps these options are too many and are costing us interactions that would be good for us. I, too, find it often rude and disruptive, for instance, when people are habitually on their texter while officially visiting with someone in person. And maybe some people are addicted to their iBerry to the point that they are harming themselves without being aware of it.
But we need more evidence for the inferiority of modern communication as a whole beyond simply that it is not face to face. Not everyone wants to interact directly with other people all the time. That doesn’t necessarily mean we’re unfriendly. When I’m on the bus, I like to read or listen to my radio. I’ve met many strangers who have decided that I would be better off talking to them. And rarely in such cases have I found the conversations to be fulfilling. Perhaps that’s because I was enjoying my book or radio program, but it may also be because getting to know someone for the first time is stilted business, and so, if we’re not destined to be great friends, we’re doing the hardest part of socializing without the payoff.
I find that people on the bus are generally pretty friendly if someone is lost or falls down. We look out for each other if there is a need, but beyond that, maybe we’ve decided as a group that we’ll focus our socializing on people with whom we have a relationship, while using our solo bus trips as free time to catch up on the book we’ve been wanting to read or cell phone game we never get to play.
The truth is it’s not hard to make friends if you’re willing to go to places where stranger-interactions are an assumed part of the activity. Sports, clubs, conferences, volunteer endeavours, and weddings are all fertile contexts for friendship-making. So, instead of imposing oneself on the nearest stranger who already had plans for their transit time, why not go to places where people have chosen to engage with new people?
And, once people are friends, I applaud those who make the effort to create opportunities to interact, but the the idea that one’s friends should always be ready for a fifteen-minute cup of tea is the most fascist notion in the history of friendship. Dearest cookie-socializer, are there no times when you don’t want to socialize? Maybe you were just getting ready to take a shower after a long bike ride, or were planning to watch a movie with your spouse after a hard day at work; how would you like it if your friends arrived on your door step just then, informing you that it was time to socialize?
And let’s be honest: it’s not going to be a “fifteen minute” morsel of time: it’ll be at least an hour before you’ll be allowed to get back to what you had planned for yourself. Perhaps YOU, cookie man, would love such an imposition of impromptu interaction, but can you comprehend the possibility that some people may have chosen their own solitude or company just then? What gives you the authority to overrule your friends’ plans with your personal preference to be in their presence at that moment? Next time, just phone (or tweet) ahead to see if they’re up for a visit, and nobody has to get hurt.
Perhaps, as the pundits argue, the world would be a better place if we were to visit with each other more often, but those who hold that position would, I submit, have more success in achieving this goal if they were to persuade those of us less inclined by making the socializing inviting instead of obligatory. If we choose it, we will stay.
Since typing the above, I forwarded it to The Simi Sara Show on CKNW (whereon some of the SethBlog villains of this piece were originally given their day on radio). As a result, to my delight and nervousness, I was invited onto The Simi Sara show to defend my “anti-social position” (see the below video, “The Simi Sara Show Part 1”). And below that (“The Simi Sara Show Part 2”) is the audience’s reaction to my radical views. Apparently, according to the popular consensus, there is no middle ground between always being social, and being an unfriendly jerk.
As summer ominously approaches for another year, and I listen as always to weather reporters proclaim its glory, I am reminded of a rant provided by myself during my radio days at SethFM. I have just taken an ear peak at it, and I can confirm that my words then are as true now (if not truer, considering global warming) as the day they were born.
Since first publishing that rant, I have received many threats (from the sun), and I have feared for my skin’s life. And so I have long resisted re-releasing my resistance material on the internet. However, I recently heard a caller into The Bill Good Show (CKNW) who brilliantly and entertainingly made her own complaints about weather reporters who insist upon decrying rain as though it’s a catastrophe. In this age of natural disasters, she asked, “Does it have to be scorching hot for people to be satisfied?”
I was delighted by this rare expression of sun resistance in our sun-obsessed culture. Bill, however—who is ordinarily a reasonable man—merely chuckled and called her “grumpy.”
Really, would you refer to Martin Luther King, Gandhi, and other oppression opposers as simply being in a bad mood? 😉
Thus, in defense of my sun-resister-sister, for the first time on the internet, I offer you now the transcript of Seth’s Editorial Rant, “The Sun Burns”:
I’ve been doing a little bit of research on journalism and what I’ve learned is that journalists are expected, nay, obligated to be impartial in their journaling. You’ll notice, for instance, when Bob Newsanchor reads the news, he says:
“Today Jean Chrétien was named Prime Minister of Canada. He does not, however, say, “Yippee, I’m glad to see that my favourite guy, J.C., got the job!”
It is, therefore, with great confusion that I notice that one species of journalist—the weather journalist—seems to believe that they are immune to the rules of journalism; you will notice, that is, that the weather journalist believes he or she has the right to tell us whether the weather news is good or bad. When the day is to be rain-shining, we are told that it is to be “a miserable day,” while when the day is to be sun-pouring, “it will be beautiful.”
Now I for one hate the sun, always have, and so when I hear that the weather is to be, quote, “nice,” I immediately get both my rain jacket and my singing voice on so that I can get out and do some singing in the rain.* For 24 years, that has been my habit, and for 24 years I have been disappointed as I discover that, instead of some lovely rain, that ugly yellow disc, that I like to call the burning ball of fire, is out to play.
*Now, of course, I am being facetious: I know that all weather people revere the sun like we can’t live without it, but I wonder what gives the weather people the right to expect me to worship that same weather that they do?
As someone who likes overcast best, I feel persecuted for my beliefs. Sometimes a passing stranger will comment to me, “What nice weather we’re having.” To which I sometimes reply:
“What nice weather?! All I can see is a burning ball of fire which is giving me cancer, is causing me to squint, and is making you, kind stranger, sweat like an ice cube in an oven convention!”
To which the stranger will reply:
“Oh, come now, we can’t complain about the heat; after all, when it was raining, we all wished for the sun to come out.”
To which I reply:
“But I didn’t complain about the rain; in fact I was out there singing in it.”
To which the stranger will reply:
“How dare you prefer the rain to the sun! You have no right to live!”
Needless to say, being a rain fan is not an easy life to live in this country of sun-o-centrics. Indeed, I often find myself hiding my rain preferences just to protect myself from an anti-rain lecture. But, on the rainy side, or—as the sun-o-files would say—on “the bright side,” by pretending to be a sun-o-file to avoid being discriminated against, I have been able to infiltrate some conversations of sunners, and what I’ve discovered is that many sunners have latent feelings of sun hating.
“What a beautiful day,” they’ll say out loud for the sun to hear, but then they’ll mutter under their breath, “Gosh it sure is hot,” “I’m exhausted,” “I need some water,” and so on.
Such words are calls for help. The fact is, most people are terrified to come out of the rain closet. You see, when it comes to weather, Canada is much more a cult than a country. We have, that is, been brainwashed to believe that we must love and adore the sun. Who is to blame for the brainwashing? Why, the aforementioned weather reporters, of course. Those quirky folks with wacky ties who stand in front of weather maps pretending to know how to interpret the weather. Yes, it is they who tell us that sun is good, rain is bad. It is they who have forced upon our society this one-dimensional image of weather beauty. And it is they who must be stopped.
We must stand up and tell the weather reporters that we will no longer allow them to tell us what weather we should like and what weather we should dislike. I’m not asking the weathermen and women to enjoy a good overcast day, I’m just asking they that don’t infringe upon my right to enjoy it. I’m just asking that—like all other journalists—they report what they see, not what they think.
As we reach the eve of Christmas this year I ask you to lay down your holiday sneer
I realize that some environmentalists may have a legitimate beef with our annual holiday upgrade in consuming products, but, aside from that inconvenient gaggle of apocolapse-alerters, I’m not sure why so many seem to talk of resenting the commercial aspect of Christmas.
We live in a world where things come in handy, but at Christmas time, participants don’t look for these items for ourselves (well, we don’t set out to, anyway), but instead we spend time thinking about our favourite people and then trying to find a thing or two that they may not normally buy for themselves, but which they may nevertheless enjoy. And so, various entrepreneurs, big and small, lineup to provide locations for us to set our annual scavenger hunt. I have no quibble with such service with a profit.
I’m told that the results are rather healthy for the economy, too, as retailers apparently can acquire up to 40% of their yearly profit from the pleasin’ season. Given the world’s current financial troubles, maybe that’s a good thing?
Meanwhile, on a social level—where I think the collective Bah-hum-bug crowd is really directing most of their disapproval—I will admit that I find Christmas shopping in the malls to be fun. And I’m someone who hates shopping like being blocked by an escalator-stander!
As I walked through the congested nostrils of the Megatron Mall today, I felt a sense of cultural community: we were all in it together. And in a town where we normally don’t like to look each other in the eye too often, we strangers smiled at each other like we were old friends. In fact, I was even patient with the slow-walkers—apparently late-minute gift-collecting is one habitat in which all speeds of walkers can co-exist peacefully. If there was stress in the air, I didn’t smell it; and if my random acts of smiling were annoying anyone, they didn’t frown so.
So Merry Christmas (Eve) shopping, everyone, and a happy new sneer!
I notice, from the previews, that the new movie, The Tourist (starring Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie), features the following conversation (approximately):
DEPP’S CHARACTER: You look ravenous.
JOLIE’S CHARACTER: You mean “ravishing”?
DEPP’S CHARACTER (confidently): I do.
Hee, hee, very funny, but I call accidental inverted plagiarism! That is, my brother has been mixing up those two words in the reverse manner for years:
SETH BROTHER: Man, I haven’t eaten all day. I am so ravishing!
SETH: I think you might mean, “ravenous”.
SETH BROTHER: Yeah, that’s what I said.
SETHBLOGS: Yes, I’m sure it was: I just hope you’ve been telling people all day about your “ravenous” self-analysis.
SETHBLOGS NOTE: As a result of comments from my readership, I have discovered that my claim that the tourist engaged in “accidental, inverted plagiarism” may be inaccurate. Please read the below comments for details.
So, many years ago, my second-placed sister (featured in the background of styrogirls.com) and I were wandering through a bookstore, whereupon we spotted an autobiography by a famous hockey player (who shall remain anonymous, but may be featured in my “HOWE TO TRICK YOUR FRIENDS” post). The interesting thing about this autobiography—unlike any other that we’d observed before—was that it was an “Authorized Autobiography.”
“Hmm,” I said to my sister (she’ll claim it was the other way around, so don’t be alarmed), “if this is an authorized autobiography, what exactly would count as an unauthorized autobiography?”
“Yeah,” my sister quickly caught on, “how exactly would you write and publish a story about yourself without getting permission from yourself first?”
“I guess maybe you could write it in your sleep?” I said.
“Yes!” my sister said. “And then I guess maybe you might find it in the morning, and—without realizing what it was—you might instinctively send it in to a publisher without realizing it was a tell-all about yourself. Oh no! By the time you realize what you’ve done, it’s too late: the unauthorized autobiography is already out there, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
Yup, it all made sense. I hope I never write an unauthorized autobiography. I know a lot of my secrets and could definitely portray myself in a negative light.
Seth celebrating his first Stumpy Cup victory. Photo submitted to Sethblogs by Seth without Seth’s permission.
So I recently took in a bit of surgery to repair an old nasal injury. I spent the recovery time under the generous care of my parents. Along with mocking my inability to wrestle with him, my dad entertained me with introductory Economics lectures on video. (I’m embarrassingly ignorant of economics, and so was delighted by the opportunity.)
The instructor-on-DVD has lots of personality, almost to the point of condescension in the first couple lectures as he explains fairly basis concepts, such as the division of labour (the notion that 100 workers can get more done if they each take on a specialized task within a project, instead of each of them trying to build an entire car on their own). I was happy to have this straight-forward concept reviewed, but once it was emphasized with a tenth example, it started to become tedious.
Nevertheless, we proceeded to the lecture on “Supply and Demand,” where once again I was ready to boast that the concept was too simple to be continually reiterated. To my headache-provoking surprise, though, it is not as simple a notion as I had imagined.
In fact, I found it so confusing that I was forced to research it post-lecture. I enlisted the help of both internet and book (Economics Explained), but was baffled to discover that the particular part that was confusing me seemed to be only vaguely illuminated by each of my sources.
Eventually, after much mind-searching, the collected instruction of my resources overlapped to make sense to me (at least I think I’ve got it). And, I must admit, it’s actually a pretty neat model. So, for my fellow economic newbies (if there are any out there), I offer you the results of my study without the cost of research:
DEMAND:
“Demand,” it turns out, is not simply, “How many do people want?” It is a relationship between price and quantity demanded. That is, given a certain price, how many do people want to buy? Today, then, we can graph the quantities demanded of autographed pictures of Seth at various prices. That demand graph, is the current demand which will arc upwards as prices go down (since more people want commodities when they’re cheaper).
But, tomorrow, if a rival Seth-paraphernalia seller comes along and offers autographed “with love” photos of Seth, the quantity demanded at every price for the original “non-loving” photos goes down, and so overall “Demand” for them will have gone down.
SUPPLY:
“Supply,” in turn, is not simply how many the sellers have of a certain item, but it is a relationship between the price and the quantity supplied. That is, given a certain price, how many Seth photos are supplied to the market by the makers of Seth photos? In this case, the higher the price, the more the sellers tend to want to supply (since that’ll make them more money), and so the “Supply” curve tends to arc upwards with price.
But if, Blog forbid, Seth’s nasal surgery went badly and harmed his looks, there may be fewer quality Seth photos available, and so the quantity supplied may go down at every price, meaning that overall “Supply” goes down.
THE FUN PART:
Now here’s the fun part: the Supply and Demand curves seem to work together to set a price in the market. If, that is, there are more people wanting an item at a certain price than there are items available, then the price of that item will go up.
For instance, let’s say that the price of Seth’s autobiography is set at only $100. The quantity demanded for that item at that price would likely then be around one billion. If, though, the quantity of books supplied is only 500 million, then the sellers can raise the price until the number of people still willing to buy matches the supply available.
In contrast, if there are fewer people wanting an item than there are supplied (at a particular price), price will go down.
For instance, the world’s worst movie, The Matrix, may supply 50 copies of itself at 25 cents each. But if only 10 people are willing to buy at that price then the price will start to drop until the number of copies available matches the number of confused people willing to buy them.
In both of the above cases, once the price of an item leads the quantity supplied to match the quantity demanded then we are in equilibrium. And the interesting aspect to an economic novice like myself is there is apparently a tendency of all products towards this equilibrium. The equilibrium will often be disrupted by outside factors (suddenly, let’s say, there is an interest in giving The Matrix as gag gifts), but the price will always then head back towards equilibrium given the new Demand.
CONCLUSION:
I like it: the Market, it seems, will naturally figure out its own disagreements until it agrees with itself again.
I gathered recently with some friends and siblings for what I thought would be some wholesome family fun. Unfortunately, someone challenged us all to a strange word game, titled Bananagrams, wherein each contestant is given letters from which to try create a full crossword faster than their opponents.
Quickly, it was noticed by me that I was slower than my rivals (generally I was just finishing sorting the letters into alphabetical order when the others were completing the grueling task). Thus, I suggested that I be given some sort of handicap to make things more fair.
“How about,” a creative participant suggested, “everyone but Seth has to get at least one dirty word in their crossword.”
This was accepted and the group set to the lewd chore.
Several moments into the noble endeavour, one of my sisters—for no apparent reason—announced, “I have sex!”
“Okay, then,” I replied, “thanks for letting us know, but for now, can we concentrate on the game?”
My sister tried to cover up her inappropriate announcement by explaining she’d found the word “sex” in her letters, but we knew she was just embarrassed, so—to make her feel better—we spent the rest of the evening sharing made-up sins of our own. Some announced that they read dirty magazines; others were voyeurs; and most of us liked S&M.
While rush-jogging out of work the other day, I realized—just before I got to my bus stop—that I was without my phone, so I re-ran back my steps to see if I’d dropped it. I arrived at my work intersection to see my phone in the crosswalk I’d just hurried across. A monster of a car was galloping towards it. In slow-motion I yelled, “Nooooooooo!”, but before my phone could realize what was happening to it, it was devoured by the wheels of the beast—and phone crumbs soared in all directions!
Okay, then.
Luckily, my 3-year phone contract with Bell was recently expired, so I was in a good position to get a good deal on a new phone. Indeed, I was a free agent, so I set out to play Bell against Rogers in a battle for my customering. First, Bell was rung, and after 2 hours of negotiation (okay 1.75 hours of that was with their hold music), I’d acquired an excellent offer.
Onto Rogers to see what they could do:
“So,” I said, “Bell offered me this—can you do any better?”
“Oh,” Roger Rogers said (approximately), “that is a very good deal—probably because you’ve been with them for so long—no way we can beat that.”
So I phoned Bell back and told them that they didn’t actually need to give me such a good rate, because their competition wasn’t close to stealing me away.
