Ran Prieur

December 16.

2019-12-16T16:40:09Z

December 16. Posting will probably continue to be light through the holidays. Today I have some thoughts about wealth and power. I was reading an article about wealth inequality, and remembered my critique of the word "privilege". I've said that it points to two different kinds of things, but now I can see three. First is things that some people have, that everyone should have, like not going hungry, or being free to travel.

Second is things that some people have, where it's okay that only some people have them. Would you rather live in a mansion or a cottage? Would you rather go to a five star restaurant or a dive bar? It's like asking your favorite color. Just because something costs more money, doesn't mean it should be universally available, or unavailable.

The problem is that money is closely related to the third category, the thing that some people have, that no one should have: power over others. And that's the real problem with wealth inequality: that our whole society is built to make us all NPC's in the game of leveraging money into more money, where only one in a thousand can play.

I was reading an article about personality differences between men and women, which tries to describe some differences without interpreting them as either biological or cultural. I think most of the described differences are cultural. Women are more "compassionate, polite, anxious, self-doubting" because they're still emerging from thousands of years of having lower social status.

Right now, the phrase "women's voices" implies voices of the oppressed, voices of the excluded. Only when it no longer has that meaning, will we know who women are.

December 11.

2019-12-11T23:50:00Z

December 11. Two videos of innocent psychedelia. First, from the subreddit, a cover of the Crystal Castles song Untrust Us, performed by the Capital Children's Choir.

And Gabriel sends BIG BIRD (Terence McKenna). Someone has compiled more than eight minutes of McKenna's best spoken word bits, and lip-synced it to a video of Big Bird taking children on a tour of a farm. My favorite bit:

The unspeakable is the true domain of being. And then within that, there is a very small subset of those things which can actually be captured in language. Mostly it's all mystery.

Coming in the wake of the new video about me, I'm impressed by McKenna's skill as a speaker: his word choice, his careful pace, and his inflections. And I wonder if some of my words would sound better from the mouth of a muppet.

December 9.

2019-12-09T21:30:24Z

December 9. A year and a half ago, a fan and a cameraman came to make a film about me, and it's just been posted to YouTube, a short doc about Ran Prieur.

I was a little afraid to watch it, but I'm really happy with it. It's weird to see myself from the outside. It reminds me of that Far Side comic, where these two guys are listening to a tape recording of themselves, and saying, "Wow, we sound like total dorks." And the joke is, they are total dorks.

Another thing I noticed is how much happier I am when I'm talking about writing fiction. It's a lot more rewarding than writing this blog, but it's also a lot harder, and has an even smaller audience.

Now I'm thinking about fame. Our culture tells us that fame is an accomplishment, when really it's a lifestyle choice. The difference between the famous and the unknown, is not how good they are at what they do (except athletes). The difference is that some people channel their skill in a way that gives them shallow connections with a lot of people. And unless you're someone like Tom Cruise, I think that's a mistake.

Early in the doc I mention Emily Dickinson. I think, for an introvert, she did it exactly right: she wrote without compromising for an audience, she never had to deal with fame, and people are still reading her stuff two centuries later.

I don't think of my own writing as self-expression. I think of it as something that was always there, and I was just the first person to find it. It's like I'm colonizing a planet, and I'd like to eventually hang out with other people who have come to live there.

December 5.

2019-12-05T17:50:44Z

December 5. So I just tried the hot new apple variety, Cosmic Crisp, and they're for real. I've never been a fan of Honeycrisps. They're crunchy and sweet, but they lack the tartness and denseness of a great apple. The best eating apples are all russets, but you can't buy them in stores because their skins are not shiny. This actually goes back to Monday's subject: the bigger the crowd, the harder it is to get them to buy apples that are better on the inside than the outside.

But now, consumers don't need to be smart, because Cosmic Crisps are pretty on the outside, and dense and full-flavored on the inside. I just did a taste test against Fuji, which is no slouch, and it wasn't even close. They're also really expensive -- the other night I paid almost $10 for five of them. But in a few years, as the supply increases, prices will come down, and the Cosmic Crisp will drive a lot of varieties off the shelves.

Everyone knows the worst apple is Red Delicious, but a hundred years ago they were really good. What happened was genetic drift, reinforced by the values of industrial farming, so the apples got gradually cheaper to grow and ship, with worse flavor, but still pretty. The same thing might happen to Cosmic Crisp, and in another hundred years we'll need a new apple.