In the Mood to Consume: A College Text Adventure

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You are on Boylston Street facing a low gray building. It has a fuchsia-pink door with a sign above it that says “Fred Wildlife Refuge.” There is another, smaller sign on the side of the building. You wonder briefly why it’s “Fred” and not “Fred’s.”

>west

You can’t go that way.

>read small sign

The sign says, “ENTER ON BELMONT STREET ONLY.”

>north

You are on Olive Street. You’re close to the Stumbling Monk, which has great beer.

> west

Wow, the Stumbling Monk is right on the corner. Maybe you should go there instead.

>south

Okay, obviously you’re determined to go to this art show thingie. It was the whole reason you came out on a Thursday night anyway, which you normally wouldn’t do since you have work in the morning.

You are on Belmont Street, facing a fuchsia door.

>go inside

You smash right into the door’s aggressively bright, aggressively hard surface.

>open door

The door is now open.

>enter building

Fred Wildlife Refuge seems pretty cool, even if it’s obviously hosting a college art opening. There’s a bar in the corner and some stairs leading up to a second level. It’s dimly lit with spotlights on the art pieces and there’s some techno music playing. Twenty or thirty college students are standing in clumps around the main floor, presumably discussing their improbable dreams of being professional artists and how they connect to the leaf-covered papier-mache globe upon which these dreams rely. Other art pieces include a series of abstract ballpoint-pen drawings (sure, just use the doodles you made during your Italian Futurism seminar, why not?) and a swaying-dots-over-translucent-ripples video projection (okay, actually kind of neat).

> find friends

The guy at the door wants to check your ID first.

>show ID

He hands it back to you wordlessly. There’s no stamp or anything.

>find friends

You cruise around the main floor for a minute, glancing at dimly lit faces. You conclude that college art openings would be a great place to pick up girls, if you were fifteen years younger and single, but you do not see your friends.

“Do you want to get a drink?” your girlfriend asks.

>fuck yes

There’s no need to be crude.

>go to bar

Amazingly, there’s no one in line.

> whiskey coke, please

The bartender hands you the drink. Unfortunately he’s overfilled it with ice and when you pick it up it slops onto your fingers, making them sticky. “Seven dollars,” he says. That may sound like a lot, but actually for Seattle it’s not crazy.

>go upstairs

On your way to the stairs you realize that there’s a table with snacks on it. Really not a bad spread.

>get snacks!

You eat some salty pita crisp thingies. There’s no hummus left for them. There never is. This follows a universal physical law dictating that the first two people to arrive at an art opening will be famished vegans who will promptly gorge themselves on the only readily available protein source.

>go upstairs

There are more college students up here. There is a small unmanned bar. There is a gray-green painting of cubes that is perhaps the worst thing you’ve ever seen, like an otherworldly assault from a neighboring dimension of ugliness on all that is beautiful in our own. Claire is here.

>claire!

“Hi, guys!” she says, in her threateningly cute way. Claire is the fuchsia door of friends: aggressively bright, gleefully obstructive. “You made it!”

Crystal is here. Shannon is here. Some girl you don’t know is here. You say hi to everybody.

>where’s mark bell?

“I’m right here, dude!” Mark Bell says. “I’m blending in!” You look down. Mark Bell is wearing an electric blue hoodie and is sitting on an electric blue couch. Did he plan this?

>where’s matt bell?

“My brother’s over there, behind the curtain. Go check it out.”

>north

In the far corner of this upstairs room, our three precocious authors – Max Kraushaar, Graham Downing, and Matt Bell – have created a little alcove by hanging a sheet between two pillars. Within its confines they are ensconced behind a banquet table, with a smaller table of books on one side and a nearly life-sized cardboard cutout of themselves on the other. This forces would-be book buyers to approach them like supplicants seeking favors.

>talk to matt bell

Matt Bell is busy signing books. There are at least six people between you and him, and the space is too small to get by them.

>wait

Okay, you’re waiting.

>wait

Still waiting. This could take a while.

>look at cutout

The cutout is nearly life-sized. In it the three authors are standing seriously, their faces carefully still, each holding a copy of the book they’re hawking. They are wearing nearly matching outfits of light blue button-up shirts and dark pants, the very same outfits they’re wearing tonight. You note that they’re arranged in order of facial hair length: clean shaven, short beard (Matt Bell) and long beard (you’re not sure if it’s Max or Graham – you’ve never met them before – but whichever it is, he has a quite glorious, long, silky beard, like something Dürer would want to paint).

You wonder how much it cost to print. You also have to admit, it makes the three guys sitting at the table look more impressive. I mean, they have an almost life-sized cutout! You know who else has a life-sized cutout? Spock, that’s who! And Arnold Schwarzenegger as the Terminator! No one to fuck with, anyway.

>look at books

The books are stacked very neatly on an end table to your left. There are more than you expected, at least twenty or thirty remaining. A sign says they are $10. You wonder how much they cost to print.

>pick up book

The book isn’t large, maybe four inches by seven. Its cover is printed in color on some nice card stock, and has a Photoshopped image of two people standing in a park whose torsos for some reason are disappearing, like Michael J. Fox getting erased from time head-first. The authors’ names are on the back, and on the spine is the title: in the mood to consume. Apparently they subscribe to the no-capitals school of naming.

>buy book

Sorry, they’re still talking to other people and signing books. They may be writing a whole other book within the pages of this one, for all you know.

>hang out with friends

Cool. Mark already has a copy of the book anyway, if you want to look at it.

>ask mark about book

“So basically they had a month to do this project for school, and they spent it writing this book. I think it’s great.”

>read book

Actually it’s too dim in here to read easily. Also, you’re hanging out with your friends. Are you really going to ignore them and read a book?

>browse book, then

Fine. Don’t be snippy.

It has a title page, which the authors have very amiably signed. It has a table of contents, although apparently this does not describe the actual contents of the book, since page 60 is listed as “blank” (it’s not) and page 250 as “synergy//regenerative landscape” (the book is 142 pages long). The first real sentence, which you read aloud, is “Jesus didn’t die for this.”

“Jesus didn’t diet for this,” Mark corrects you.

>so he’s fat jesus?

“Yeah. So basically Santa Claus. Santa Claus is Fat Jesus.”

The next two pages are an essay on carburetors. The most remarkable thing about them is the spelling of “carburetor,” which somehow you really thought was “carburator.” No, okay, that does look wrong.

Then there’s a page about how water is like blood, a recounting of a Bill Hicks joke you’ve already heard, and an incomplete short story about a mutiny on the Ride the Ducks tour bus (it’s a Seattle thing). There’s some ASCII art of types of swords: katana, broadsword, flaming sword, sword with skull. There’s another short story about a haunted Mack truck.

Continuing with this catalogue, there are a lot of one- or two-sentence aphorisms a la Jack Handy’s Deep Thoughts, only not so funny. There’s a play-by-play description of a chess game, which kind of annoys you because the narrator’s opponent loses his queen on move 9, which means the game is basically over, but then it goes on for another seven pages. There are two pages of the sentence “THIS PAGE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK.” There’s a list of videos on Vine. There’s a first-person narration of an online MUD, which gives you an idea for this review.

It is, in other words, a lot of nonsense. Occasionally there’s a chuckle.

Really, it’s not so much a book as a mockup of a book, an almost life-sized cardboard cutout of a book. It seems intended as a sort of winking mockery of book publishing and author signings in an age where anyone can walk into an Officemax with a flash drive and walk out with a stack of neatly bound paperbacks. Want to be an author? Great! Put your money on the table! Want to be someone who knows an author? Great! Put your money on the table!

There are, however, several valuable lessons here:

1. There’s safety in numbers. As one person, you have a limited number of friends willing to go to your events. But you know how many more friends three people have? Three times as many! Team up to pump your sales numbers.

2. Gimmicks work. Who doesn’t love a gimmick? Make the buying process itself an adventure and people will do it for the sake of a story to tell their friends. You’re suddenly contemplating the viral value of dressing in costume for your own self-published book signings.

3. Drunk people love buying stuff. Seriously. Forget bookstore signings. Find the busiest, loudest, drunkest bar in town and set up by the front door.

Finally you see that the crowd by the authors’ table has dispersed. The way is clear.

>buy book

Sure, why not? You’re in the mood.

5 Tips for Making the Most out of Memrise

/ joeltagert / 8 Comments

Before discovering Memrise, I had made some half-hearted attempts to learn Turkish. I got some books from the library, printed out some phrases from the internet, and dutifully set about learning how to say “hello” and count to a hundred.

Problem was, sitting on the couch repeating words to myself was really, really boring. Also, I had no idea if I was pronouncing the words correctly, so even if I successfully memorized a few phrases, I might find when I got to Turkey that no one could understand me.

But surely I can haz Turkish via the Internet. I looked at Rosetta Stone and some other language-learning software, but I didn’t want to pay a large fee. I’m going on a three-week vacation, not trying to emigrate.

Enter Memrise. It’s free. It has multiple language courses, including Turkish. You can use it on your computer or portable device. It offers not only audio, but user-created “mems” (read: mnemonic devices) to aid in recall. Via a simple gardening metaphor, it encourages you to learn new items (“plant”) and review what you’ve already learned (“water”). The review process itself is structured as interval training, meaning that you review newer items first, older items later, with reducing frequency depending on how many times you’ve reviewed them and how often you’ve identified the word or phrase correctly.

This all amounts to a powerful, simple, and fun learning experience. Maybe the most brilliant aspect of Memrise is that it turns language learning into a simple but addictive game. Since you’re only learning five or so items at a time, no one section is ever that difficult, especially if you review frequently, but cumulatively you learn a lot, very quickly. Imagine where you’d be if you’d taken those 4,000 hours you spent playing World of Warcraft and used them to learn languages.

“Yeah, so I’m like, a level 60 French learner.”

However, it’s not perfect. Fundamentally, Memrise is not language-learning software. Rather, it’s multimedia flashcard software with a clever structure and review process. What this means is that it’s very effective for memorization, but naturally it lacks key features of the costlier software packages or actual classes, in particular extended composition and face-to-face conversation.

Even disregarding its inbuilt limitations, there’s clearly room for improvement. My greatest frustration is that Memrise courses never explain anything. It’s all pure memory. Of course, learn enough items, see enough examples, and eventually you’ll deduce or intuit the underlying structure – that is, after thousands of examples. This is how we all learn languages as children. Nobody explains how to form the past progressive tense to us; we just hear it ten thousand times and absorb it by osmosis.

As an adult learner, though, I want to understand the how and why of things. It’s far easier for me to learn the six common pronouns (I, you, he/she/it, we, y’all, them) as a group, and then be able to pick them out from a given phrase, then to try it the opposite way and pick out the totally unfamiliar pronoun from a series of foreign words. What part of “O kaç yaşında?” (“How old is he?”) is the pronoun? In the phrase “Doğum günümde seni görmek isterim” (“I want to see you at my birthday”), which word is the verb? What denotes the object? If “gün” is “day,” what’s “günümde”?

Doğum günü: Doggone birthday

Often, too, I’d find that I’d learn a complex phrase, only to see its individual words included in later vocab sections. This is doubly stupid. First of all, why am I learning phrases about time, say, when I haven’t yet learned the words for “day,” “week,” “minute,” etc.? Second, if I’ve already successfully learned the complex phrases, then I’ve quite likely already puzzled out their components and don’t need to be retested on them.

This is part of the problem with crowdsourcing. You get a lot of content very quickly and cheaply, but it’s rarely as well-organized as a professionally designed course.

Fortunately, after a while I developed some strategies for avoiding these problems, and I’ll share these tips with you here:

1. Preview the course before you start, and compare it with other courses. There are hundreds of courses on Memrise, including dozens for each language, and not all courses are equal. Memrise will present the most popular courses, but popularity isn’t necessarily the best criterion for judging a course. Some courses include audio, others do not; some focus more on vocabulary, others on structure or common phrases. Click on the individual sections to see what the course includes and how it progresses.

2. Don’t be afraid to jump around. If the courses were all well-structured, they would build naturally, and you would want to move from A to B in the order suggested. Since this is not always the case, however, feel free to pick and choose. Personally, I would suggest learning the alphabet first, then very common phrases (“Hello,” “Goodbye,” “Where is the bathroom?”), then numbers, and then a good deal of basic vocabulary. With that vocab under your belt, you’ll feel more confident navigating more complex phrases.

Where is the toilet: Tuvalet nerede? (toilet nerd)

3. Buy a textbook. I spend way more time using Memrise than reading the Turkish textbook I have, but that textbook has helped me a lot in understanding key rules and structures.

4. Use a real computer. Memrise is available as an app for your portable device, and that app is terrific and fun in its own right. However, I found that using Memrise on my desktop computer was considerably more demanding, and hence better for learning. Also, a number of features, such as the ability to make your own mems (see #5), are only available on the web platform.

5. Make your own mems. Memrise will automatically show user-created mems whenever they’re available. If one works for you, great. If not, look for your own associations and make your own mems. You’ll remember it better for having created it.

What should I memorize?

/ joeltagert / 2 Comments

So you’ve learned some basic mnemonic techniques like the method of loci, the link system, and the wardrobe system. Having learned the how, though, you immediately encounter the question of what: What should you memorize?

Right away certain things come to mind, most of them mnemonic challenges we encountered in school: memorizing the U.S. presidents, memorizing the fifty U.S. states and their capitals, memorizing the countries of the world and their capitals. These challenges are perfectly suited to mnemonics, comprising simple lists of information that can be placed along a mnemonic journey or linked to a list of peg words.

And these, naturally, were the first things I memorized or am still memorizing. However, I also noticed that finding this information in a simple, printable format was surprisingly difficult. So I have set about correcting this deficit by creating exactly such lists in Google Docs. Here enjoy:

Countries and capitals of the world printable list

U.S. states and capitals printable list

U.S. presidents printable list


While I’m at it, I’ll also observe that all these lists have something in common, namely that they are around 50 items in length. There are 50 U.S. states; 44 presidents; 49 countries in Asia, 54 in Africa, 50 in Europe, and 50 in North America, South America, Australia and Oceania combined. There are also, as it happens, 47 Super Bowl winners (soon to be 48) and 53 players on a football team. Even more significantly, to my mind, the alphabet times two equals 52, and there are 52 playing cards in a deck.

What this suggests, to me, is that these lists can be linked in a wardrobe system. I’m still experimenting with the system myself, but basically I’m beginning by accumulating simple alphabetical lists to serve as peg words. These include the radio alphabet along with alphabets of animals, modes of transportation, musical instruments, mythical creatures, and common objects. For convenience I’ve organized them into a spreadsheet of useful alphabets.

Along these same lines, I noticed that there are also a number of items in lists of 12 that would be nice to memorize. All of us of course already know one list of twelve, namely the months of the year, so this can serve immediately as a list of peg words. Other groups of 12 include birthstones, Western and Chinese Zodiac signs, the twelve apostles, the twelve tribes of Israel, and the Labors of Hercules. I’ve placed all six of these lists in a single printable document:

Correspondences of 12 items for memorization

I’ve also been experimenting with the different mnemonic systems mentioned above, and I’ll make one last observation regarding this early stage of memory design. In switching between mnemonic systems, I thought it would be easier to take something I’ve already memorized – say, the countries and capitals of Europe, via a memory palace – and transfer it to a different system, i.e. the wardrobe system, by way of experiment. This, as it turns out, was a mistake. After all, if you’ve already memorized something, why re-memorize it, especially when forming new links could muddy up the images you already have? Use your time to learn something new, and your images will be fresh and crisp.

Think of another list of 12 or 50 items that would be good to memorize? Write it in the comments.

Making Memories: Memorizing Phone Numbers

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Having created a Major PAO system, I naturally wanted to test it, and so I decided to memorize the phone numbers of the 17 people I work with. I printed out a copy of the contact sheet and set to work.

The first thing I needed was a memory palace. I settled on the Trader Joe’s where I shop for groceries. Having wheeled a cart around its aisles every week for about three years now, I’m intimately familiar with its layout, and already have an established journey through it. Perfect.
I began outside the store, where in real life a local newspaper vendor often hangs out. The first person was Jim Albright (not his real name). Right away I noticed a problem: phone numbers are ten digits long, while the POA system I’d devised was best suited for multiples of six. I would have to either lose one Person, Action, or Object, or use two single-digit images (which would make things a bit repetitive).
After some trial and error, I came up with the simpler solution of making the first Person in the sequence the actual person whose number I was trying to remember. So if Jim’s number was (216) 728-0158, the first image was not of a knight (21), but rather of Jim himself. The Action then was knitting (21), the Object a chick (67), followed by my nephew (28) sitting (01) on lava (58). In total, Jim knitting for a chick (I imagined a little chicken-shaped sweater), with my nephew sitting on lava, presumably very uncomfortably.
I ran into a second problem, which is that these really formed two loci rather than one. I tried in each case to connect them somehow – my nephew could be angry with Jim for making him wait while he finished his chick-sweater, say.
(Incidentally, I later took up memorizing pi to the hundredth decimal, with 10 decimals per line. Since I didn’t need to connect any actual people with the numbers, I altered the system to POA-PO. In this system the same number would be a knight [21] with a chick [67] knifing [28] Sid with lava [58]. I might for instance imagine a knight dressed in steel armor made to resemble a chicken, stabbing Sid Vicious with a knife made of lava. The advantage is that all the images combine to form a single connected locus.)
A third problem worth noting was that many of my coworkers had the same area code, Seattle’s 206, and frequently the same next digit as well, a 6. This meant that a lot of images began with “so-and-so nosing hashish,” which is fine once or twice, and not so great the fifth or sixth time. To resolve it I basically switched up the order of POA to PAO, or used alternate words. So “nosing hashish” became “in a noose with a judge.” Altering the order might matter in memorizing a deck of cards in two minutes, but it didn’t cause me any problems here.
Finally, one last hitch. Having memorized all seventeen numbers (170 digits, by the way – no great feat for a mnemonist, but remarkable to anyone else), I went to work and proudly proclaimed the fact. Naturally my co-workers asked my to recite their numbers for them, and so I did, until one person, Robert, stopped me halfway through his number, saying, “Nope. That’s not it.”

The funny thing was, I remembered the image clearly: Robert nailing up a map while Lisa juiced a ram. Puzzled, I went back to the list and realized that I had transposed the last four digits of his phone number with someone else’s. I’d remembered the image, but I’d made the incorrect image in the first place. Lesson is: it’s no good memorizing something if the information isn’t right in the first place.

Ten nonfiction books to transform your consciousness

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Periodically I see top-10 book lists on Facebook, and I’m generally struck by a few things. First, such lists frequently reveal more about the extent of the individual’s reading than the quality of the books included. Second, they’re nearly always fiction, or fiction with a smattering of nonfiction books that the person obviously read in college.

Now, I’m not an authority on nonfiction, but there have absolutely been a number of books that have profoundly influenced how I think and act. They extend from fundamental views of existence, as in the first three books listed here, to political consciousness, history, religion, memory, writing, and diet. I honestly believe that reading any of these books, just once, can move you toward a more positive, constructive, and centered existence. Don’t believe me? Pick one and give it a try.

1. Remember: Be Here Now by Baba Ram Dass. When I first encountered Be Here Now at age 20, it was like a bolt of lightning striking my brain. I felt like someone had finally sat me down and explained how life was, why people acted the way they did, and where to go from here. Divided into three distinct sections, Be Here Now first tells how Harvard psychologist and LSD researcher Richard Alpert became the yogi Ram Dass; then lays out the fundamentals of karma yoga and Eastern philosophy generally in hand-drawn letters and distinctive Blakean illustrations drawn by Ram Dass himself; and finally provides further resources for study and inquiry. If you haven’t read it, well, you haven’t read it.

2. Taking the Path of  Zen by Robert Aitken and The Three Pillars of Zen by Phillip Kapleau. These two books are recommended for beginning students at the Zen Center of Denver, and remain, in my opinion, the best introductions to Zen Buddhism. Aitken’s book is simple, clear and concise – deceptively so. I think often people read it and say, “Well, sure, that makes sense,” precisely because it rings so true that afterwards it all seems obvious. Partly it’s also because Aitken is careful not to introduce a ton of ideas about enlightenment that may later be a hindrance to practice. Kapleau’s book, on the other hand, includes all the bells and whistles, with lengthy accounts of sesshin (Zen retreats) and personal enlightenment stories. Critics may say that it presents enlightenment as an object to be acquired (which naturally becomes an obstacle to realization), but it certainly inspired me to pursue Zen practice, as it has inspired thousands of others.

3. The Gateless Barrier, various translations. Okay, last Zen book, I promise. But I would be remiss if I didn’t include it. The Gateless Barrier is a collection of forty-eight koans – the sayings and doings of past masters – that Zen students have studied for centuries. Rather than talk a lot about it, I’ll just include Robert Aitken’s translation of Case 19, “Ordinary Mind is the Tao”:

Chao-chou asked Nan-ch’uan, “What is the Tao?”
Nan-ch’uan said, “Ordinary mind is the Tao.”
Chao-chou asked, “Should I direct myself toward it?”
Nan-ch’uan said, “If you try to direct yourself toward it, you betray your own practice.”
Chao-chou asked, “How can I know the Tao if I don’t direct myself toward it?”
Nan-ch’uan said, “The Tao is not subject to knowing or not knowing. Knowing is delusion; not knowing is blankness. If you truly reach the genuine Tao, you will find it as vast and boundless as outer space. How can this be discussed at the level of affirmation and negation?”
With these words, Chao-chou had sudden realization.

4. The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr. Technically this isn’t really an autobiography, since King died before he could write one; rather, it’s a collection of his writings and speeches arranged biographically. Regardless, it’s a wellspring of inspiration.

5. The UnconquerableWorld: Power, Nonviolence, and the Will of the People by Jonathan Schell. I have a running joke that I always recommend this to people and have yet to have someone actually read it. You could be the first! Schell deconstructs historical narratives of war and revolution and shows how, since governments invariably depend on the will of the people, violence is ultimately unnecessary for political revolution. I also highly recommend his book The Fate of the Earth, a study of the likely results of nuclear war and the military insanity known as “nuclear deterrence.”

6.  The Masks of God by Joseph Campbell. Campbell’s four-book masterpiece reviews the development of mythology from primitive man to the modern creative age, and shows how all stories act as metaphors pointing to universal human truths. Along the way you get a survey of world history and culture. Pretty useful, right? If you don’t want to spend the next six months reading four dense books, though, you can just read Hero With a Thousand Faces, which is also great and a hell of a lot shorter.

7. Moonwalking with Einstein by Jonathan Foer. I just read this book, but it’s been blowing my mind. Did you know it’s possible to use a few simple techniques to memorize long lists of random numbers, or random words, or the order of a shuffled deck of cards, or just about any damn thing you want? I didn’t! And it’s not even hard! It’s fun! So far I’ve memorized the countries and capitals of Africa and Europe and the phone numbers of everyone I work with. And I’m just getting warmed up.

8. The Elements of Style by William Strunk and E.B. White. You writerly types have already read this and can move on. If you are reading this post and have not read The Elements of Style, however… well, I’m sorry your education has so completely failed you. Essential for writers. Useful for anyone.

9. Diet for a Small Planet by Francis Moore Lappe. I’ll be honest with you, I don’t even remember this book all that well, but I’m going to recommend it anyway. I read it in a flurry of books back when I was 19, along with Peter Singer’s Animal Liberation, Philip Kapleau’s To Cherish All Life, and Phyllis Balch’s Prescription for Nutritional Healing. Later I would read Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser, Supersize Me by Morgan Spurlock and probably a half-dozen other books that don’t come immediately to mind. In any case, they convinced me thoroughly of a few things, namely that animals experience pain in exactly the same way we do; that needlessly killing them is wrong; that raising them as industrial commodities is unbelievably cruel; that eating meat causes enormous environmental destruction; and that eating a vegetarian diet is easy and healthy. Pick one book and read it. Even if you don’t immediately start eating vegetarian, I guarantee you’ll at least be more thoughtful about what you eat and why.

10. The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. Dawkins lays out the essential arguments against a belief in an all-powerful creator with crystal clarity. If you’re already atheist or agnostic, it will clarify your thoughts on the subject. If you do believe in God, then I challenge you to read it and walk away unchanged.

Looking for sanity in marijuana laws

/ joeltagert / Leave a comment
I’ve spent most of my adult life in two states, Colorado and Washington, and as it happens, these are the two states that have passed laws legalizing pot. Am I single-handedly responsible? Dude, I totally am.

Okay, no, I’m totally not. At least not single-handedly.
I did, however, vote yes on initiative 502, which essentially legalized marijuana in Washington. That’s not to say I had no reservations about the initiative, because I did, and I’ll detail them in a second. But I thought, and still think, that the harm done by incarcerating marijuana users outweighs the harm done by an increase in marijuana addiction.
Yes, marijuana is addictive. If you don’t think it is, then explain that one guy you know who smokes pot from the time he wakes up until right before nighty-night. I’ve known people who smoke before work, who smoke in the break between classes, who smoke before a movie, during a movie, and after a movie. If something’s stressful, they smoke to chill out. If it’s relaxing, they smoke to enjoy it more. If that’s not addiction, it’s a hell of a habit.
At the same time, marijuana is not heroin. It is not crack cocaine. It is not alcohol. If even a long-time heavy user stops smoking altogether, cold turkey, they will not have convulsions or drop into a feverish delirium. What they will likely have is considerable anxiety and an intense desire to get high.
There are, however, a couple of other health concerns. The first is that marijuana smoke is harmful to the lungs. I’m sure this is true – it’s obviously not good for your lungs – but given the comparatively small amount of smoke inhaled by marijuana users, I just can’t get too worked up about it.
The other concern is the connection between marijuana use and mental illness. I believe that heavy marijuana use probably does raise the likelihood of developing mental illness in certain susceptible users, and worsens the conditions of those already diagnosed with mental illness.

This is serious, and is perhaps my foremost worry with legalization, or at least with the full-scale commercialization occurring in Colorado and (soon) Washington. The commercialization of pot will almost certainly increase use; increased use will likely result in higher rates of drug addiction and mental illness. Let’s not downplay it. Marijuana can have a profound effect on individuals, and not infrequently that effect is negative. Played out on a societal basis, it has a significant impact.
My feelings about what role government should play are pretty well summed up in David Brooks’ recent column on pot: “…in healthy societies government wants to subtly tip the scale to favor temperate, prudent, self-governing citizenship. In those societies, government subtly encourages the highest pleasures, like enjoying the arts or being in nature, and discourages lesser pleasures, like being stoned.”
Fair enough. The problem, of course, is that pot policy has been anything but subtle. It has mostly consisted, instead, of locking untold thousands of people in prison for the “crime” of using a drug that most people would concede is less harmful than alcohol or cigarettes.
To call this unjust is like calling the Joker a little bit crazy. It’s more than unjust; it’s positively monstrous. It turns government into a tyrannical Big Brother looking over your shoulder as you light up in your living room, threatening to burst in with assault rifles and throw you in jail. Imprisoning people for marijuana use is utterly wrong, and doing so comes with its own cascade of harmful consequences.
And if we can return to alcohol and cigarettes for a minute: It is also perfectly reasonable to compare marijuana to these substances, and to seek some consistency in our drug laws. It is reasonable to correlate the likelihood of addiction, and the degree of harm posed by that addiction, with the extent of legal prohibition.
That being the case, and since it’s clear that marijuana really is less dangerous than alcohol and tobacco, two lessons can be drawn: first, marijuana should at least be decriminalized; second, alcohol and tobacco should be more tightly controlled.  
With all this focus on health outcomes, though, I don’t want to obfuscate my essential belief that government simply has no right to lock people up for possession of most recreational drugs. Selling drugs, especially large amounts of drugs, is another issue, but even then the law has been hideously inconsistent. Even if they’re doing a drug far more harmful than marijuana, their addiction should be treated as an illness, and that’s all. Locking people up for having a drug addiction like locking people up for having leprosy (which also has not been uncommon historically).
Now, I think there is a middle ground here, one which neither Colorado nor Washington have taken, mostly because the citizens of those states, sick of decades of immoral and ineffective marijuana policies, performed an end run around their legislators and passed initiatives legalizing pot. It would be great if other state legislatures would learn a lesson and avoid the worst consequences of both prohibition on the one hand and commercialization on the other by passing more cautious laws of their own.
Personally, what I’d advocate is a conscious attempt to remove private profit from drug sales. We should seek to eliminate both the black market and the private market – both of which encourage drug use – by replacing them with a tightly controlled government monopoly, or at least a monopoly on retail sales. Practically speaking, this would mean government-run pot dispensaries, similar to the government-run liquor stores common to many states. Possession of moderate amounts of marijuana should be legalized (two ounces sounds like a lot to me), while selling it would remain illegal.
This is a middle path. It recognizes the right of individuals to make basic choices regarding what they put in their bodies, while also recognizing the dangers posed by use and seeking to weaken the drug market, legal and illegal. It’s neither the draconian fist of government smashing people’s lives apart, nor the grasping hand of entrepreneurs encouraging vice for profit. That’s what I call subtle encouragement.

Making Memories: Creating a Major PAO system

/ joeltagert / 13 Comments

Since reading Joshua Foer’s Moonwalking With EinsteinI’ve become a little obsessed with memory systems. In particular, I’ve spent the last several weeks working on a 110-digit person-action-object system based on the Major phonetic memory system. You can find a description of the Major system here and the PAO system here.

It seems many mnemonists use a non-Major PAO system for memory work, associating the digits 00-99 with unconnected person-action-object combinations. Foer’s book title, for instance, is based on the image of Michael Jackson moonwalking with a white glove. Remember any part of the image, and you’ll remember the rest.

The great disadvantage of this system, however, is that you have to first associate each of these hundred images with the corresponding number. This presents a significant time investment and a barrier to easy use. The great advantage of a Major-based system, by contrast, is that all you need to know is its 10-digit phonetic basis, which anyone can learn in about five minutes. With that easy-to-acquire knowledge in hand, you can then use a printed table to create your images and retranslate those images into numbers, without even having to memorize all one hundred images.
Memory-Sports.com has a link to a Major PAO system here, which was basically my starting point. This system is really quite well constructed, but I had some problems with it. First, quite a few of the names and words used weren’t entirely phonetic. This is not a big deal, but in some instances I thought there were easily available phonetic alternatives. Second, some of the actions and objects just didn’t work for me in memorizing. They were too small, too indistinct, too forgettable.Third, some of the Persons just didn’t mean anything to me. This isn’t surprising, given the constraints of the system, but I realized it would be very helpful to provide alternatives so that you could more easily construct your own system. In finding those alternatives, the keyword search tool at http://www.phoneticmnemonic.com/ was very helpful.
You’ll also note that my system has 110 images. Why? Because you can’t always count on an even number of digits in the number you’re trying to memorize. So there’s one set of images for 0-9 and another for 00-09.
In any case, here’s the actual Major PAO system I ended with in a printable format. But to help you make your own system, I’m going also to go through it here, digit by digit, with alternative words and notes. The point, after all, isn’t to have a single uniform system for everyone, but a personalized system that works for you. It’s your memory, so you’ll have to find those images that stick in your mind.
0. Zoe sawing a house (Alternatives: Sue, see, sea, zoo)
Zoe’s include Zoey Deschanel, Zoe on the West Wing, or of course someone you know with that name. I envision a dollhouse for the house.
1. Di dying with a tie (Eddie, doe, dough, auto, die, hood, tea, tee, toe, weed, wood)
Princess Di, or if you prefer, Eddie Murphy, Eddie Vedder, Mr. Ed. Dying could be advanced age, having a heart attack, or a chemical dye.
(108 more after the jump…)

2. Neo kneeing wine (Anne, Han, annoy, gnaw, gnu, inn, Wayne, wean, wane)
Neo from The Matrix in trench coat and shades, smashing a bottle with his knee. If you want to pursue a Star Wars theme, use Han, but you might want to save him for Solo (05).
3. Moe mowing ammo (Amy, Emma, aim, ma, me, homo, hum, womb)
Moe from the Simpsons. Big bullets.
4. Uhura rowing with an arrow (air, Roe, Roo, ewer, hair, hare, hero, ore, war, whore, wire)
5. Leia oiling an owl (Lee, lie, lye, law, lei, howl, ale, wail, whale)
Princess Leia from Star wars. Bruce Lee lying in a leiwould also work well. Personally I remember an owl more readily than flowers, and I used lie low for 55.
6. Chewy chewing a shoe (Joe, Joey, Jew, ash, edge, jaw, jay)
Following the Star Wars theme. Also considered Joe Biden.
7. Ewok playing hockey with a cow (Kay, Guy, hawk, hike, hook, hug, oak, wake, walk, wig, wok, yoga, yoke)
Lots of action-object alternatives here. I get the easiest images from hockey.
8. Ivy weaving a wave (Ava, Heff, vow, heave, hive, hoof, wife)
I use Poison Ivy from Batman. Not many great choices for F or V names.
9. Pooh bowing to a bee (Abe, Abby, Bay, boy, buy, hippo, boa, bow, hoop, oboe, pea, pee, pie, pa, web, weep, whip).
Lots of choices. Settled on Winnie the Pooh as simple, memorable, and phonetic. You could extend the theme with Roo (4), Owl (5) and Tigger (17). I know it’s tempting to do Pooh pooing or Pooh peeing, but then what will you use for 61 (shit), 90 (piss), or 99 (poop)?
00. ZZ sizing a seesaw (Zeus, sis, seize, sass)
I picture one of the guys from ZZ Top, long beard and cowboy hat. Sis (as in sister) also works, if you have a sister and don’t mind imagining your family members doing some weird stuff. I picture “sizing” as measuring with a measuring tape.
01. Sid sitting on sod (Zed, Saudi, seed, soda, soot, suit, stew, sty, swat, sweat, swede)
Sid Vicious sitting on a roll of sod (grass).
02. Santa singing in the snow (son, Sonny, sun, swan, swine, swoon, sign)
I really don’t like this much because of the inexact phonetics, but the memorability of the image probably makes up for it. Actually, in my personal system I use “Xan signing in the snow,” but that only works if you know someone named Xan.
03. Sam swimming with a semi (sumo)
Uncle Sam, Sam Worthington, or someone you know. A sumo wrestler also works well. A semi is of course a large freight truck.
04. Zoro soaring in a Zero (sear, sari, Sawyer, sewer, sire, swear)
A Zero being a WWII-era Japanese plane. Soaring being flying in any form.
05. Seal swallowing a seal (Solo, Sulu, Sully, sail, slay, sleigh, soil, swell)
I know, I’m failing nerd-wise by not using Han Solo or Sulu. But Seal swallowing a seal is easier to remember.
06. Sacha sashaying in sewage (sash, siege, sage)
Not a ton of choices here, and very limited names for Persons. This is Sacha Baron Cohen, but if you know someone named Sasha, that might work better.
07. Zack sucking on a ski (Isaac, Zeke, sock, soak, sake, sag, sack, sick, swig)
Hopefully you know a Zack or an Isaac. Otherwise, maybe imagine a zombie named Zeke?
08. Sophia saving a safe (salve, salve, sofa)
I imagine Sophia Lauren, diving to catch a safe before it hits the ground.
09. Zap zapping a zep (seep, soap, sob, soup, spew, spy, sub, sweep, swipe, swoop)
Zap Brannigan from Futurama zapping a zeppelin with a raygun.
10. Taz tazing a daisy (Dizzy, dice, tease)
Not a ton of choices here, but the Looney Tunes character works fine.
11. Data tattooing a tit (Todd, dad, dude, edit, toad)
Data from Star Trek: TNG. A toad might actually be better than a “tit,” but give it a try and see which you prefer.
12. Dana tanning on tin (Dan, Diane, Diana, Dino, Dean, Dane, den, tuna, tune, twine)
Dana Scully from the X-Files, of course, tanning langorously on a tin roof.
13. Timmy timing a dummy (Tim, Tom, Tammy, Dom, dam, tame, tomb, tome)
Timmy from South Park in his wheelchair holding a stopwatch, with a crash-test dummy.
14. Tori drawing a tire (Dora, Hodor, Tara, dare, deer, diarrhea, diary, door, dry, hydra, otter, tar, tear)
Lots of choices here. Take your pick.
15. Dali dueling with a towel (Dolly, Doyle, Dale, deal, dial, idol, tail, tool, yodel)
It’s a surreal image. Get it? Get it?
16. Tasha dodging a dish (DJ, TJ, attach, teach, touch, twitch)
outlawyr’s system uses Tasha Yar, but to tell the truth I haven’t watched Star Trek: TNG in years, and I barely remember her. Also, I don’t really like loading up on Star Trek characters, because they all wear the same uniforms, which makes them visually similar. Definitely a point for Star Wars. Unfortunately, there aren’t a lot of choices for Persons here. Let me know if you think of something better.
17. The Duke decking a taco (dick, dock, dog, duck, tack, talk, tic, tuck, tug, twig)
John Wayne punching a taco that’s presumably been rude to a lady. Originally I had “dig” instead of “deck,” but then I realized that I also had “bury” for 94. Too similar.
18. Daffy diving with a dove (Dave, defy, tofu)
If you don’t like ducks, I guess you could use Dave Letterman, Dave Matthews… a lot of Daves.
19. Debby taping a tuba (Dobby, Dopey, tub, type)
If you know a Debby, great. If not, maybe Dobby from Harry Potter will work.
20. Nazi nosing a noose (niece)
Yeah, not many choices. I use Hitler for the Nazi, and picture “nosing” as poking something with his nose.
21. knight knitting a net (Andy, Anita, Hannity, Wendy, ant, gnat, knead, knot, nut, untie, wand, want, window, wound)
22. nun nannying an onion (neon)
Nun and onion work great, but nannying is admittedly a little hard to picture. Wagging a finger and wearing an apron should work.
23. Nemo giving an enema to a gnome (numb)
One sick fish. One sick gnome.
24. Nero honoring a wiener (Henry, Nora)
A Roman emperor saluting a wiener. Can obviously also refer to penis. If you know a Henry or a Nora, that would probably stick better than Nero.
25. Neil kneeling with a nail (anal, inhale, knoll)
Neil Patrick Harris, or Neil Armstrong in a space suit. “Anal” or “inhale” are both good alternative Actions here.
26. Nacho notching a nacho (Nash, gnash, nudge)
Jack Black as Nacho Libre cutting notches in the nachos.
27. Nick knocking on a nuke (hang, neck, nick)
Nick Cave, Nick Cage.

28. nephew knifing the navy (envy, nova)
I imagine my nephew stabbing a submarine. If you don’t have a nephew, outlawyr suggests “Nefertiti.”
29. Napoleon napping on a knob (honeybee, nip)
I actually have a friend named “Nebi,” which works great here, but since that’s not a common name I’ve included the “Napoleon” option. A cartoon honeybee, like from the breakfast cereal, might also work well.
30. Holmes macing a moose (messiah, mouse, maze)
Sherlock doing what he gotta do to that murdering moose. Note that it’s pronounced “Homes.” “Messiah” would work as well or better, but I use “Jesus” for 60.
31. Mitt muddying a mitt (Matt, maid, meat, meet, mite, moat, mutt)
Mitt Romney getting a perfectly good baseball mitt all dirty. How that would bother him. Lots of Matts around too, of course.
32. Minnie mooning the moon (Moon, Mooney, Mann, mine, ammonia, mane, money)
I originally had the Reverend Moon here, but he did nothing for me. Minnie I can remember, at least.
33. mom miming a mummy (maim)
The things mothers do to help you remember.
34. Mary marrying a mare (Marie, hammer, marrow, mayor, mire, mower)
The Virgin Mary, or any of the world’s hundred million other Mary’s.
35. Maul mailing a mole (Emily, mill)
More Star Wars with Darth Maul. You might imagine the mole with its head sticking out of an envelope.
36. MJ mashing a match (macho, mage, mesh, mojo, mush)
Mary Jane from Spider-man.
37. Mickey mugging a mug (Mike, Meg, McCoy, hammock, mock, mic)
Mickey Mouse, or any Mike you know.
38. Mephistopheles moving a humvee (Muffy, movie)
I struggled with this one. Originally I had “Muffy,” who is either a character from the cartoon Arthur, or a rapper. Neither one means anything to me, so I’ve switched to Mephistopheles, i.e. Satan. Switching to Satan is always the right answer.
39. Moby mopping a map (amp, hemp, imp, mob)
I’ve cleared his table a couple times. True story.
40. Rose racing a rose (Reese, Rice, Ross, arouse, raze, rice)
My friend Rose, Pete Rose, Reese Witherspoon, Condi Rice.

41. Rod riding a rat (art, award, heart, hoard, horde, radio, raid, reed, riot, write)

Rod Stewart riding a rat. Just seems right, right? If you don’t like Rod, though, you might try Reed Richards of the Fantastic Four, with the stretchy arms and all that.
42. Ron running with a rhino (Aaron, iron, rain)
Ron Burgundy, maybe?
43. Rambo ramming a ram (army, harem, ram, ream, roam, worm)
No, Rambo is not phonetic, but trying finding another name that is. Rahm Emanuel? Ram Dass? I imagine “ramming” as head-butting.
44. warrior roaring at a rear (Rory, aurora, horror)
Again, very few options. I picture a Scottish warrior with a claymore, yelling at someone’s butt.
45. O’Reilly rolling a roll (oral, rail, reel, royal, rule, whirl)
Bill O’Reilly with a big dinner roll. Great for memory because every time I use him I feel a little angry. Tempting of course to use “oral,” but remember that “suck” is 07.
46. Reggie retching a roach (Archie, Irish, orgy, rage, reach, rouge)
Funny that both Archie and Reggie work here.
47. Rocky raking a rock (Eric, Rick, rack, rag, rig, rogue, rook, rug, wreck)
48. Rove raving on a roof (Raffi, Harvey, arrive, reef)
Karl Rove breaking it down with some glowsticks. Even evil needs to get loose sometimes.
49. Rabbi raping a rib (Rob, Arab, harp, rope, rub, wrap)
One messed-up rabbi. One messed-up rib.
50. Lisa lassoing lace (Lewis, Louise, Lucy, lice, lose)
I use Lisa Simpson.
51. Lloyd welding a light (Lady, Eliot, lad, lead, lute)
Christopher Lloyd, best known as Doc Brown from Back to the Future. outlawyr suggests Lady Gaga, but I have a hard time imagining her as “Lady” rather than “Gaga.”
52. Elaine leaning on a lion (Helen, Lynn, alien, loon)
Elaine from Seinfeld.
53. Liam looming with a lime (Alma, William, elm, lamb, limb, loom)
Liam Neeson leaning creepily over you.
54. Lara lowering a lyre (Laura, Larry, lawyer, lure)
I picture Angelina Jolie as Lara Croft. A lyre is a small harp.
55. LL (Cool J) lying low with a lolly (Lyle, Lola, Lily, loll, lull)
Maybe Evangeline Lily? I dunno, I gots big love for LL. I know “lie low” may seem weak, but lying on the ground is a simple, clear image. Maybe you could imagine “lulling” as cradling something and singing it a lullaby. A lolly is of course a lollipop.
56. Luigi leashing a leech (eyelash, lash, ledge, lodge)
57. Luke licking a log (elk, hulk, leak, leek, leg, lock, lug)
More Star Wars with Luke Skywalker.
58. elf laughing at lava (leaf, love, loaf, olive, wolf)
Maybe Will Ferrell in the movie, maybe Legolas, maybe some other elf.
59. Leprechaun leaping on a lip (Lobo, Lapp, elbow, help, lab, lap, lobby, lop)
I went through several options before settling on “leprechaun.” The first syllable at least is phonetic, and the image is very memorable. “Leper” could also work; outlawyr suggests “Liberace.”
60. Jesus chasing cheese (chess, choose, juice)
No, not precisely phonetic, but Jesus is too easy to remember. You could do (Chevy) Chase chasing cheese, which is also easy.
61. Judy doing judo on a jet (cheetah, chide, jade, shed, sheet, shit, shut)
Judy Garland in her Wizard of Oz getup. I also considered (Chester the) Cheetah or (Joan) Jett. Didn’t use “shit” because I like “poop” too much for 99.
62. John chaining a genie (Jane, Jean, Joan, June, Sean, gin, ocean, shine)
Tons of Persons to choose from, so take your pick. I think John Lennon immediately, personally. You could do John chaining a john, if you like.
63. Jimi jamming with jam (gem, gym, shame)
Jimi Hendrix or some other Jim.
64. Cher showering with a cherry (Jerry, char, cheer, shear, shore)
Or Jerry Seinfeld showering, but who wants to imagine that?
65. Joel jailing jello (Jill, Julie, cello, chili, gel, jelly, shell)
My name’s Joel, so you know, easy ’nuff.
66. Cheech judging hashish (Joshua)
Maybe the easiest mnemonic of all these.
67. Chuck choking a chick (Jack, Jake, chalk, cheek, chuck, chug, hedgehog, jock, jog, jug, shag, shake)
I have friend named Chuck, and I like the alliteration, but there’s about a thousand Jacks you could use. Jack Skellington would probably be my choice.
68. Chef shaving a chief (Jeff, Jehovah, shove)
Okay, Jehovah’s tempting, but I didn’t want to get confused with Jesus. I use Chef from South Park and imagine a wooden tobacco-store chief.
69. Jabba chopping a sheep (Job, chip, Jeep, ship, shop)
Jabba the Hutt getting ready to eat. If you used “lamb” for 53, you’ll want to use “Jeep” or “ship” instead of “sheep.”
70. Kiss kissing a goose (Casey, Cass, accuse, axe, ex, gaze, keys, ox)
One of the guys from the band Kiss in concert makeup.
71. Cat(woman) cutting a cat (God, Kate, Kit, act, coat, cod, goat, gut, kite)
Now, Catwoman’s not entirely phonetic, whereas God and Kate are. But if I imagine Michelle Pfeiffer in that vinyl outfit doing pretty much anything, well… rawr.
72. Ken canoeing with a gun (Cohen, Ken, Khan, acne, can, cane, coin, cone, queen)
Quite a few choices here for all three. Queen Elizabeth is easy and visual, but I also love Leonard Cohen, and Star Trek’s Khan is pretty vivid. Be sure to distinguish “canoe” from “row” (4).
73. Kim coming on a comb (coma, gum)
I imagine Kim Jong Il, but maybe there’s another Kim you prefer. outlawyr uses “combing gum,” but don’t tell me you’ll actually remember that better.
74. Cory crying on a car (Carrie, the Crow, Gary, Oscar, choir, crew, cure, curry, gore, guru, hacker, hooker, ogre)
Take your pick of Persons here.
75. Coolio cooling a koala (Kelly, Quayle, call, claw, clay, coal, coil, cola, collie, eagle, glow, glue, gull, igloo, quail, quill)
I originally had “killing” here, but in trying using the system I realized that it was too indefinite, considering all the other violent actions used for other numbers. I imagine Coolio dumping bags of ice on a feverish koala.
76. Cash catching cash (cage, coach, gash, gouge, gush, quiche)
Johnny Cash for an easy mnemonic. Nicolas Cage would also work. Man, that guy is everywhere.
77. Kirk kicking a cake (Cook, Gaga, cock, cocoa, coke, cook, cookie, gag, kayak, keg, quack)
Kirk isn’t entirely phonetic, but it’s close. Kayak is distinct, but too close to row (4) or canoe (72).
78. Goofy coughing with coffee (calf, give)
Probably from all the Pall-Malls he’s been smoking.

79. Cap cupping a cape (Kip, cop, cub, gape, hiccup)

Captain America, ironic since he doesn’t wear a cape. Kip is a character on Futurama.
80. Fozzie lighting a fuse on a vise (face, fuss, fuzz, phase, visa, voice)
Okay, I have to confess, I never watched the Muppets that much, so Fozzie’s actually kind of hard for me to remember. Any other suggestions?
81. Vader doing voodoo with a video (avoid, feed, fight, foot, photo, vet)
Darth Vader isn’t quite phonetic, but he’s easily the best choice for this number. Voodoo means he’s sticking pins into something. I imagine a VHS cassette for video, or something playing on a screen.
82. Vin fanning a phone (Finn, Vaughn, Vin, faun, fawn, fin, oven, vein, vine)
Vin Diesel. Vince Vaughn or Finn from Adventure Time are both fine alternatives. Maybe Finn fanning a fawn?
83. Fam(ily Guy) fumigating an ovum
After some struggle I’ve come to terms with this one. “Family Guy” is Peter Griffin, “fumigate” is walking around with a metal canister spraying stuff, and “ovum” is a big ostrich egg.
84. Pharaoh firing fire (Farrah, Fury, fairy, fear, ferry, fir, fry, fur, hover, ivory, pharaoh, veer)
A couple choices for Persons, but I think an Egyptian pharaoh is easiest to remember. “Firing” is using something as a gun, as distinct from fire as an object.
85. Fool falling on a flea (fail, feel, flee, foil, foul, fowl, fuel, veil, viola, waffle)
A costumed Fool doing a pratfall. If you imagine a flea, you’ll probably have to imagine a lot of them to make it stick. If you prefer, you could have Flea (from the Red Hot Chili Peppers) fleeing a flea.
86. Vishnu fishing for fudge (fetch, fuji, vouch, voyage)
I originally had the band Phish, but for the life of me I couldn’t remember it (not a fan). Vishnu is a multi-armed blue Indian deity.
87. Viggo fucking a fig (Vicky, fag, fake, fog, folk, vogue)
Viggo Mortensen.
88. Fifi high-fiving a fife (Viv)
I use Fifi La Fume from Tiny Toons. Vivien Leigh from Gone With the Wind is also viable.
89. Fabio with a phobia of a viper (Phoebe, fob, fop)
Fabio looking scared of a snake. Originally had “fob,” like a keychain, but it’s no good for memory.
90. Bozo pissing on a bus (the Boss, Buzz, abuse, booze, pass, pussy)
Bozo the Clown.
91. Buddha biting a bat (Pat, Pete, Buddy, abbot, beat, bed, beet, behead, bet, boat, body, butt, pout)
92. Ben playing piano with a bunny (Ben, Bono, Obi-Wan, Penny, bean, bone, bun, ebony, pen, pin, pine, pony)
Originally had “Obi-Wan,” which is a memorable image but not necessarily easy to connect with 92. 
93. Obama bombing a bum (balm, beam, boom, opium, palm, puma)
Why, Barack? Why?
94. Barry burying a bra (Barry, Perry, bar, bare, bear, beer, berry, boar, burrow, eyebrow, opera, pare, parry, pear, pour, prey, pry, purr)
Barry White stands out to me. Of course, you can use Barack (Barry) Obama, but “Obama bombing a bum” just seems too natural not to use. There’s also Perry Mason, Katy Perry, and Luke Perry, and a number of Bears that would do the job,
95. Bill bowling with a bell (Abel, Apollo, Paul, Paula, apple, ball, bell, belly, blow, bowel, bull, opal, pail, peel, pile, pill, pillow, plow, pole, pool)
Lots of choices here for all three words. Bill Murray’s the first Bill that comes to mind.
96. Bush butchering a peach (Apache, badge, bash, beach, bitch, bush, pitch, push)
97. (Miss) Piggy poking a bike (Polk, back, bag, bake, beak, beg, book, buck, bug, pack, peck, peek, pike, puck, puke)
98. Buffy buffing beef (beehive, buffet, pave)
I imagine a big side of beef.
99. Popeye pooping a pipe (Bob, Pope, baby, boob, papa, pop, poppy, pub, puppy)
Guess he just lost control and swallowed it one day.

Aphorism: Intuition

/ joeltagert / Leave a comment

Intuition is most valuable when it helps you bring unconscious impulses to light and follow the deepest promptings of your heart. Yet if you follow your intuition uncritically, it rapidly devolves into irrationality and rank superstition. A dash of doubt seasons the soup of character.

The true cost of car ownership

/ joeltagert / Leave a comment

It seems Millennials aren’t buying cars. Well, they are, but not as many as their parents. Worse yet, they don’t even seem to care that they’re not buying them. They’re not even getting driver’s licenses, for Chrissakes.

Everyone’s remarking on the trend, and everyone has a different set of explanations. NPR ran a puff piece a few days ago suggesting that cars are losing their position as key status symbols for teenagers. The Atlantic points to the rise of smart phones and car-sharing services, among other culprits. Time echoes the “cars aren’t cool” teen sentiments revealed by several opinion studies, while also citing the views of automakers that it’s the economy, stupid, and when jobs pick up, the kids will buy cars just like their parents. (Forbes, ridiculously, says it’s just that young people are pickier than ever– that if they can’t have a BMW when they’re sixteen, they’ll wait until they’re eighteen. Because of coursethey’re getting a Beamer.)
Every article mentions the high cost of owning a car. It turns out – surprise! – that owning a car is really expensive, and a lot of young people, especially those living in the city with its greater car-owning costs and transit options, have realized they can’t afford it. What I want to say here, though, is that a car isn’t just really expensive. It’s really, really, reallyexpensive, representing for most people the largest portion of their disposable income. It is, in short, about the worst financial decision you can make, and if you can possibly avoid buying a car, you should. On a broader level, our society’s obsession with personally owned cars is profoundly unhealthy, representing a huge misplacement of wealth that could otherwise be spent on desperately needed public investments.
So just how expensive is car ownership? AAA estimates that the average sedan costs $8,946 per year to operate. That’s right: almost nine thousand dollars, including car payments, maintenance, insurance and gas.

This figure alone blows my mind. See, I don’t own a car. Mostly I ride my bicycle, and occasionally take the bus. Once a week my girlfriend and I walk to the grocery store and carry our food home. When we want to go out, we walk to a nearby restaurant or bar – easy to do here in Seattle’s urban Capitol Hill neighborhood.
The total cost of owning a bicycle? Well, I bought it new for about $600, with tax, four years ago. I bring it to a bike shop for regular professional maintenance, costing me at most $200/year. I’ve also bought a fair number of bike accessories, jackets, gloves and the like, so let’s add another $200/year for that. And let’s say I’ll buy a new bike next year (I won’t, but lots of people would), at a similar price.
My total yearly cost of ownership: $520.
But wait! What if I actually need a car? What if I’m moving? What if I want to go to Portland? What if I want to eat at a restaurant in Ballard? 

For this, I have a number of options. I’m a Zipcar member (I refuse to say “Zipster”), and a Car2go member. I can also rent from Enterprise if needed, and I never hesitate to take a cab.

Aren’t those expensive, though?
It doesn’t take a mathematician to see they’re not expensive at all, compared to $9,000/year. Stop and think: for $9,000, you could rent a Zipcar at a daily rate of $90 for 100 days. More realistically, you could rent a car two days a week, every week – or more realistically yet, sign up for one of their heavy-user monthly plans, use a car two or three days a month, and save thousands.
Now, not everyone drives a new car. The amount spent on car ownership naturally tends to decrease with income, and the lowest 20% of income earners on average spend about $2,800/year. That’s a far cry from $9,000, but still a lot more than the $1,000 or so I’ll spend on my bicycle and car-sharing services.
The true cost of car ownership, though, is far greater than these figures alone, because they must be balanced against not just the money you would otherwise retain, but the money you could save, and the interest on that money. When you begin looking at car costs as lost savings, you realize that they represent, over the long term, hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Start with the average cost of ownership versus non-ownership. If I save $8,000/year, over ten years I’ll have saved $80,000. Right?
No, of course not. There’s interest accumulating on that. At an interest rate of 6.5% compounded monthly, you’ll have saved $113,000.
So: after ten years, you could have a car, and whatever else you manage to save. Or you could have no car, and $113,000.And this is for an averagecar. Over a twenty-year period, the results are even more astonishing: by not owning a car, you could amass a golden nest egg of $329,000.
By now some readers are bursting with objections, the first of which is certain to be: “But I have to own a car. I need it to get to work. I need it to pick up my kids from school, and get groceries, and visit Mom in Bellingham. I can’t do without it, and so all these calculations are meaningless.”
For many people, especially those living outside of city centers, these objections are perfectly valid. In the long term I would question the wisdom of development models centered around cars – i.e. sprawling, inefficient suburbs – but in the short term, it’s what we’re stuck with. And of course the economic calculations involved in buying a car are far more complex than just choosing to ride a bike or take the bus. Owning a car can often mean a substantial increase in income, because it vastly increases the radius within which one can reasonably search for employment. This should really be balanced against the cost of owning a car – are you making $8,000 per year more? Can you move closer to work? – but jobs also aren’t always just about the bottom line. For that matter, visiting Mom in Bellingham may not be a purely secondary consideration. Family is important, and if it costs a lot to visit our loved ones while maintaining a decent life for ourselves, that’s a price many are willing to pay. And for those living outside of major cities, cars are often the only way to get anywhere. After eighty or ninety years of car-centered urban planning, it’s how most of the country is built.
But I want to return now to the lower-income cost of car ownership. Less well-off people spend about $2,800/year. That’s a lot more than the $1,000 I’ll spend, but it’s also a lot less than $9,000. How do they do it? First off, they drive cheaper cars, which is to say, they buy used. They also are more likely to have only liability insurance instead of full coverage, and drive less, because they’re more conscious of gas prices.
However, they still own a car.They can still drive to work if they need to. They can still visit Mom, get groceries, and take the kids to karate class. They have all the mobility and convenience of every other car owner.
The point is this: Practically speaking, there is no difference between a cheap car and an expensive car. They do the exact same things and travel at the exact same speeds. Practically speaking, economically speaking, the latest model hot off the lot offers absolutely no more value than a ten-year old clunker. So why, why, whybuy a new car? Why, people?
“Because it’s cool! It’s fun to drive!”
Crap. Total crap.
This kind of reasoning is for four-year-olds. Ask some little kids what they would do if you gave them a thousand dollars each, and they’ll say, “I’d buy toys! And candy, lots of candy.” The kids could do lots of things with that money. They could buy lessons, take a trip somewhere new and interesting, get something of lasting value. But because they’re kids, they’re not even aware of the possibility. All they want is the stuff they’ve seen advertised on Saturday mornings.
As adults, we need a broader perspective. We need to see that money doesn’t just buy us toys; it buys us opportunities.When we choose to buy a car instead of a bicycle, or an expensive car over an inexpensive one, we are foreclosing on our own futures.
One last calculation: $9,000 vs. $2800, the average car cost vs. the low-income cost, a difference of $5200 per year. Over a ten-year period, with interest, you’d save $73,000. Over twenty years, it’s $213,000. Remember: You still have a car. It works, it gets you everywhere you need to go. It’s just not new.
Think of what you could do with that money. You could put a down payment on a house (a second house, for that matter, since you’re probably paying rent or mortgage already). You could open your own business, exponentially increasing your earning power. You could go back to college on your own dime, and study whatever you want. You could give to charity. You could help out your friends and family and community in vital ways.
Or you could drive around a slightly shinier vehicle. You could (maybe) impress a few friends with your purchase, until it becomes old hat and you start to want a new one.
When I see a Lexus SUV or a BMW convertible, I don’t see something that’s “fun to drive.” I see a terrible failure of the imagination. I see ambitions so small, dreams so circumscribed, that they seem drawn straight from TV commercials. I see individuals so unconsciously obsessed with status that they’ll throw away their futures for the sake of a hood ornament.
And when you multiply these costs across a whole nation, across the whole Earth, you see something still more devastating: a world that devotes its energy to the shallowest of objectives, on mere possessions. With the money we waste on cars, we could do nearly anything. We could build high-speed rail lines through every metro area, construct a hyperloop, put a colony on Mars. We could end homelessness permanently, make higher education universally accessible, and pay for truly universal medical care.

All it would cost is to stop worrying about how shiny our toys are.