The explosion of local bands around the world tends to track rising living standards and Internet use. Making loud music is expensive: You need electric guitars, amplifiers, speakers, music venues and more leisure time. “When economic development happens, metal scenes appear. They’re like mushrooms after the rain,” says Roy Doron, an African history professor at Winston-Salem State University.
Tag: wsj
My creative process begins with: just thinking. I do a lot of thinking, a lot of pondering. I rarely watch films in airplanes; I just sort of sit there, looking at the ceiling. Day dreaming is the equivalent of doodling; it’s mental doodling.
Joe Queenan: My 6,128 Favorite Books – WSJ.com
A case can be made that people who read a preposterous number of books are not playing with a full deck. I prefer to think of us as dissatisfied customers.
Cellphones Are Eating the Family Budget – WSJ.com. Among other things.
How to Stop Hospitals from Killing Us – WSJ.com
The Medication Generation: Teenagers and Antidepressants – WSJ.com
In my own case, talk therapy was vital. Though it didn’t make the pain go away, it did enable me to do something medication hadn’t, which was to talk and think about myself. It gave me a chance to have someone else confront my pain not as disorder but as part of the human experience. And that made it bearable.
The Medication Generation: Teenagers and Antidepressants – WSJ.com
10 Things Your Commencement Speaker Won’t Tell You
6. Read obituaries. They are just like biographies, only shorter. They remind us that interesting, successful people rarely lead orderly, linear lives.
7. Your parents don’t want what is best for you. They want what is good for you, which isn’t always the same thing. There is a natural instinct to protect our children from risk and discomfort, and therefore to urge safe choices.
Are You As Busy As You Think? – WSJ.com
Claiming to be busy relieves us of the burden of choice. But if you’re working 50 hours a week, and sleeping eight hours a night (56 per week) that leaves 62 hours for other things. That’s plenty of hours for a family life and a personal life — exercising, volunteering, sitting on the porch with the paper, plus watching TV if you like.
Made Better in Japan – WSJ.com
The heavy black menus offer no dishes, only a short manifesto from the chef explaining that he will choose what we eat.
Charles Murray on the New American Divide – WSJ.com
Places to live in which the people around you have no problems that need cooperative solutions tend to be sterile. America outside the enclaves of the new upper class is still a wonderful place, filled with smart, interesting, entertaining people. If you’re not part of that America, you’ve stripped yourself of much of what makes being American special.
How To Not Get Sick On An Airplane
I get sick every time I go home for Christmas, and while it isn’t helped by lack of sleep and alcohol abuse, I’m pretty sure 75% of it is the 3-5 hours I spend on what is, essentially, a flying petri dish.
So thanks to The Wall Street Journal for these tips (which I’ve summarized):
- Hydrate (drink water, use saline spray).
- Clean your hands with alcohol-based hand sanitizer
- Use disinfecting wipes to clean off tray tables before using
- Avoid seat-back pockets.
- Open your air vent, and aim it so it passes just in front of your face. Filtered airplane air can help direct airborne contagions away from you.
- Stay the hell away from people who look sick
The air vent thing was new to me! Now I’m off to get disinfecting wipes and some saline spray.
Update: thanks to @aweissman for this suggestion: “i do this and it almost always works: basically OD on Vitamin C before you get on the plane – right before. Use EmergenC or a similar product, drink it all up while waiting.”
See also: Daniel Pink’s travel tips. Episode #1 is about avoiding illness. I like his ointment-in-the-nose trick. And don’t forget (environ-)mental health tactics: earplugs, headphones, eye mask!
Cooking Food Featured in Fantasy Novels – WSJ.com
On a recent evening, Ms. Monroe-Cassel used boar tenderloins to recreate a dish served during a wedding feast with 77 courses in “A Storm of Swords.”
I really hope I invented this word: cuisplay.
Music Students Hit the Boxing Ring – WSJ.com
“It does feel satisfying to hit something.”
I’ve noticed that my best ideas always bubble up when the outside world fails in its primary job of frightening, wounding or entertaining me.
Why New Restaurants Are So Noisy. Hardwood floors, plain walls, exposed ceilings, no tablecloths.
Humblebrag: Re-Tweeting (Not-So) Humble Promoters – WSJ.com
Actor Levar Burton had my all time favorite. The tweet was “It’s a good night for natural light in LA” and then he posted a picture of his fireplace, but on the mantle above it were like 20 Emmy awards. A masterpiece!
Twin Lessons: Have More Kids. Pay Less Attention to Them. – WSJ
See also Bryan Caplan on letting your children cry themselves to sleep in the dark, lonely night and other things tagged parenting.
Twin Lessons: Have More Kids. Pay Less Attention to Them. – WSJ
I haven’t had trouble with writer’s block. I think it’s because my process involves writing very badly.
Mark Larson 