Uncouth Reflections

Retro: Barber Shops

Posted on September 18, 2012 by Paleo Retiree

Paleo Retiree writes:

These days I often find myself enjoying retro things. Is it my age that makes me so partial to old things, and to new things done in old styles? (If I’ve achieved true fuddy-duddyism, I have to say that it feels surprisingly good. No more need to “keep up” with things — yay to that.) Is it spending so much time using flashily modern electronic gadgets that leaves me in the mood for something more solid and material?

In any case, I feel a reliable and deep rush of satisfaction when a well-kept old car drives by … or when I visit a steakhouse, and settle in beside The Wife in a red-leather booth … or when a classic cocktail is placed before me.

Urbanistic moments and touches often do it for me too. The other day, for instance, I was was strolling through the downtown of a small California burg and noticed that it supported two traditional barber shops. Not hair-stylists but barber shops, dammit — the real deal, with the requisite poles, seats, signs and relaxed, guyish camaraderie. What a lovely little experience it was to explore them for a few minutes.

Here’s a visual impression.

Do such places detract from our experience of “downtown,” or are they part of why we bother with downtowns at all?

Posted in Architecture, The Good Life | Tagged barbershops, retro pleasures | 12 Comments

Orcas Failing to Launch

Posted on September 17, 2012 by Fenster

Fenster writes:

A scientist from the University of Exeter says that “prolonged life after menopause remains one of nature’s great mysteries.” What is the adaptive value to the selfish gene of living way beyond childbirth?

That got the researcher, Dr. Darren Croft, to look into the lifespan of the orca. Orcas are like people in that they tend to live a long time after childbirth. Female orcas tend to give birth in their thirties but can live another 50 years after that.

Part of the answer comes from something that the scientists knew before the study: that orcas, like a few other species, tend to stay in family groups permanently, with the mother always around to provide for and care for her adult children. But what do mothers do, and does it make a difference? Croft’s approach was to analyze whether adult orcas without mothers were more likely to die than those with mothers. That might indicate that there is actual value in prolonging the mother-offspring bond.

And that is what they found, and especially so for males.

“Our research shows that, for a male over 30, the death of his mother means an almost 14-fold-increase in the likelihood of his death within the following year,” explained Dr Croft.

But for females, the chances were only three times greater for the over 30s, and remained unchanged for those that were younger.

Still unexplained is exactly how mothers care for their offspring, or what other factor would be responsible for the different death rates.

Also to be explained is how this relates to people. Everybody is upset over the recent phenomenon of “failure to launch”.

Maybe it’s the most natural thing in the world.

Posted in Animals, Personal reflections | 2 Comments

Question Lady Question

Posted on September 17, 2012 by Question Lady

The Question Lady writes:

What’s your idea of the perfect restaurant?

Posted in Uncategorized | 7 Comments

Vegas: Land of 1,000,000 Women in Hooker Dresses and Their Shlubby Guyz

Posted on September 17, 2012 by Blowhard, Esq.

Blowhard, Esq. writes:

The architecture is great and all (and I’ll return to it), but Vegas is one of the great people-watching destinations. So let’s take a look at the indigenous wildlife, shall we? [1]

Continue reading →

Posted in Photography, Sex, Travel | Tagged beta males, Cary Grant, collapsed manhood, crimes against style, Fashion, Game, Heather Graham, hooker dress, hot broads, Las Vegas, Mandalay Bay, men and women, photographer as stalker, The Palazzo | 25 Comments

Sometimes I Feel Like an Alien …

Posted on September 17, 2012 by Paleo Retiree

Posted in Politics and Economics | Tagged government, politics, YouTube | 6 Comments

Campus Cuties, by Louis Marx and Company

Posted on September 16, 2012 by Fabrizio del Wrongo

Fabrizio del Wrongo writes:

During the years immediately following the Second World War, Louis Marx and Company was the largest toy producer in the world. The outfit was mainly known for its molded plastic figures, many of them sold in boxed playsets through the Sears catalog. If you were a male child in the ’50s, chances are you had a few of these sets. They generally featured some cardboard architectural elements, some bits of mock scenery, and scads of plastic figures in a variety of poses. The sets were generally based on famous historical events or settings, like the battles of Little Big Horn and The Alamo. They were cheap, but they contained entire worlds. Stuck inside on a rainy afternoon, crouched low on the living room floor, an imaginative kid could really get lost in one.

Continue reading →

Posted in Commercial art, Personal reflections | Tagged 1960s, Action Figures, Barbie, Belle & Sebastian, Campus Cuties, Dolores Hart, Fashion, Feminism, G.I. Joe, Hasbro, James Bond, Kenner, Louis Marx and Company, Mattel, Paula Prentiss, Playboy, Playsets, Post-War America, Sears, Star Wars, The Twist, Toys, Where the Boys Are, Yvette Mimieux | 21 Comments

Venice and Lawyers in Vegas

Posted on September 15, 2012 by Blowhard, Esq.

Blowhard, Esq. writes:

When it comes to traveling, my dad would say it’s a waste to spend a lot of money on a hotel room. “What’s the point? You’re gone all day. All you do is sleep there.” Sensible advice, I must say.

Sensible advice that I plan on ignoring ever since I stayed at The Palazzo in Vegas. Time for a phototour!

Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Law, Photography, Travel | Tagged arbor gates, blondes, conventions, Disney, fatherly advice, Imagineering, Las Vegas, lawyer-assholes, Michael Almereyda, phototour, Shakespeare, The Palazzo, Venice | 15 Comments

Computer Advice Needed

Posted on September 15, 2012 by Paleo Retiree

Paleo Retiree writes:

After 17 years of being a contented user of their gadgets, I’ve recently found myself falling out of love with Apple.

One factor: I don’t like the direction the company is steering its customers in. In fact, nearly everything Apple has introduced into OSX since 2009’s Snow Leopard (best Mac OS ever, IMHO) has turned me off. It all seems dictatorial, locked-in and controlling even by Apple’s standards.

Some others: Their cloud strategy (iCloud) strikes me as wrong-headed … Their determination to make desktop/laptop computing ever more like using a smartphone horrifies me … Even the company’s recent product announcements have been dull; they show zero excitement and less than no vision. The current Apple crew seem to be doing nothing more than filling in the big picture that Steve Jobs sketched out for them.

The iPad may have been the moment that broke my spirit. I have an iPad2 but I don’t use it very often. It’s a slick machine in many ways, no question about that. And iOS (the operating system of the iPad and iPhone) is nothing if not perky, appealing and clever. But I find iOS (and the ever-more-iOS-like OSX) frustrating. It may be super-convenient but it defeats me. I can’t express the dismay I felt when I realized that an iPad user has no access to the device’s filing system, let alone the horror that overcame me on learning that there’s no way to drag and drop a file from the iPad to the laptop, or vice versa. Synching with iTunes? You gotta be kidding. And there’s no way to get to your document except through the app you created it in? What do these people take me for? According to a recent comments-thread over at Macworld, the fact that I’m comfortable using my laptop’s filing system qualifies me as a “power user.” And Apple isn’t focused on “power users” any longer, I’m told.

Continue reading →

Posted in Computers | Tagged Apple, Google, Linux | 12 Comments

Linkathon

Posted on September 14, 2012 by Paleo Retiree

Paleo Retiree writes:

Don’t work such damn long hours.
Ah, the benefits of the Arab Spring …
Loving couple. (NSFW.)
Read it, girl. (The visuals are innocuous but the audio is definitely NSFW.)
Foseti is trying to make some sense of the 1960s.
Anti-therapy therapist Stuart Scheiderman thinks that Hanna Rosin’s new women-are-great book stinks.

Posted in Linkathons, Sex | Tagged Foseti, Hanna Rosin, sex, Stuart Schneiderman | 4 Comments

Everything Old is New Again

Posted on September 14, 2012 by Fenster

Fenster writes:

Steely Dan’s well-known audio perfectionism caused the group to be one of the first to scramble to CD format. I remember going into Tower Records on Manhattan’s West Side and emerging triumphant with one of their CDs–this at the time when the CD offerings consisted of a small display amidst several floors of LPs.

Now, for the “true audiophile”, Donald Fagen’s newest is available on “High Performance clear vinyl”.

My nephew, now 28, asked me a decade or so ago, “what’s a record?”

My son, 17, recently said to me “oh dad, that’s what they call vinyl. You wouldn’t know about that.”

Steely Dan