Do Men Belong In Salons?

I've tried salons before. Every time seems to be a new exercise in embarrassment for me. The couches are too low, and my pants bunch up. I can't cross my legs, so inevitably I end up sitting like a fifth-grader waiting for his after-school ride: slouching, legs akimbo, mind totally elsewhere, fingers tapping. Each time I go to the salon, I think I somehow miss out on the "salon experience". Maybe you have to love gabbing, or maybe you have to really love getting your hair worked on. I don't particularly enjoy either of these things, but I do like the look of a good haircut. So I suffer 30 minutes of anxiety for 6 weeks of perfectly sculpted hair. However, after my last trip I'm beginning to rethink the whole thing.

I arrive, and take an uncomforatble seat on a quite comfortable leather couch. The second I pick up a magazine my name is called to go back for shampooing. I am already starting to feel like an outsider, like the whole thing is some sort of civility test written in another language.

In my limited experience, the shampoo girls are almost always attractive. I'm not the bundle of nerves around women that I used to be, so I think about what I should do. Should I become a chatty-Kathy and start waxing philosophical on movies and such? Or would it be more appropriate to let this opportunity wash away with the suds? I decide to chat. She chats, we chat, it's great. But of course I cannot look at her and must speak out into a blurry expanse of black shirts and glinting scissors, because my glasses are in my lap. It's a good experience. I'm already feeling a little more at-ease. But EVERY time I can't stop my over-reactive mind from wondering...does she massage all clients' scalps this deeply? This seems like a GREAT scalp massage to me. Really terrific, sensual. Is she flirting with me through my scalp? I decide probably not, think about how ridiculous it would be if I asked her out right now in front of everyone, and then am led to to the cutter's chair.

Alison, my usual cutter is on vacation, so I am introduced to Thomas. He seems nice, kind of trendy, and also slightly bitchy--like my cat that will swat at you even if it's lying on its back with its paws in the air, purring. I describe in botched words what I want from my haircut:

"Something, kind of messy, that I can wear up or down. Casual, but nice enough for the bar or the office". He kind of gets it, and then asks:

"What is it that you do?"

"Umm, I'm unemployed".

Silence.

(Lebowski style peace out here. Wow, this one hurt, right off the bat. Why did I say that!?)

After we digested my gaffe, the engine of conversation is reignited by Thomas with this comment:

"Do you want me to trim up your sideburns a bit? Because long sideburns are really not in at ALL right now". (My sideburns were MAXIMUM at the bottom of my ears)

"Yes, please" I respond.

"Oh, OK, because I didn't know if you were going for the whole Elton John look or something".

Hokay, so. At this point I'm pretty ruined. I start to clam up a bit and manage a nervous laugh. We both know this isn't really an insult, but it was a completely superfluous add on. I slowly feel like the balance of power in my fledgling Technicolor relationship with Thomas and his fancy combs has been irrevocably lost.

Thomas excuses himself for a minute, and I ponder my next move. Don't say anything stupid. I don't. We get through the cut, with me fielding some questions, but asking more, which is what I always do when I'm nervous. I always thought that the burden of carrying the conversation fell with the cutter. They always carried it before. This harsh re-education at the manicured hands of Thomas was interesting, and most ceratinly epitomized his final grab for total power. I sat feeling disenfranchised in my shiny swivel chair.

We're done. Whew. He shows me the back of my head, how tidy the necklineit is. I agree, and start thinking about the tip. I already consulted my Mom before going and settled on 5 dollars. Amount is not an issue, one variable down. But, when do I give it to him? If I give it to the girl at the front desk, is Thomas going to think I stiffed him. I am a big proponent of tips being either seen or heard. I don't like the ananymous tip...I want the satisfaction of giving Thomas 5 bucks to defer the cost of a new Banana Republic shirt.

He made his exit a little quick, and I was left in the lurch. A curt "thank you have a nice day" and a dash! "Wait", I shout in my mind. This is when you get the tip, dammit! I freak out and jam my hand into my jeans pocket. Keys! Receipt! I wanted the 5 to be the only item in this pocket, but in my flustered entrance I must have forgotton and plunked my keys in there too--now an unfortunate bulge.

I say too loudly over my left shoulder, body twisted, hand in pocket:

"Hey, I've got something for you here!"

Thomas stops talking to another stylist, glances at me, and comes back to receive his prize, a wadded up five dollar bill.

Get me out of here. I just leave, I don't need another 35 dollar haircut in 4 weeks as they recommend. I just need some normalcy, some non-rarefied air, and some Fall Out Boy.

Of course this amount of over-alanyzation, and socio-interactive pschothopy and dissection is totally unnecessary, but some things I just can't change. Gotta laugh it off. See you in the salon.

Branding a city is difficult. When a city is treated like a product and relies on brand identity to attract tourism and business, it runs the same risk as every other new product that enters a competitive market: failure. Branding is important, but cannot in itself create a strong city, just as attaching a clever slogan to an inferior or unfocused product cannot make that product successful. Bethlehem has a lot going for it. Business and technology growth are strong, unemployment is down, the city is host to diverse festivals and attractions, and it has historic and religious underpinnings that make it stand out among other cities of similar size. However, its branding strategy and vision need work.

While the forward-thinking involved in branding Bethlehem should be applauded, its execution needs to be carefully examined. Bethlehem’s new logo is a mishmash of historic attractions, religious attractions, musical billings, and industry. It is confusing at a glance, and contains too much information to be processed quickly and remembered. It screams to outsiders looking for a clear, concise visual example of Bethlehem: “We don’t know what we stand for!” Cities and products that have successfully branded themselves have not fallen into this “mushy middle” trap of trying to offer all things to all people. Rather, they have focused on becoming categorical. An example of a categorical city is New York City. The “I Love New York” brand has a global resonance because of its strict adherence to basic branding rules, and its ability to deliver on its promise.

Identityworks (www.identityworks.com), a leading brand management company, states that a successful brand must be distinctive, practical, graphic, simple in form, contain one message, and be able to fit goals and intentions. Bethlehem’s brand might get a begrudging pass on some of these criteria, but it is sadly misdirected in two key areas: simplicity and brevity.
Simplicity. In short, Bethlehem needs to create a new category of city based on a simple, honest, and direct brand. This new category could be one of several things, but it cannot be all things. We simply don’t have the resources, reputation or population to support every category of attraction currently being offered with the new Bethlehem logo. Branching out from the Christmas City slogan and accompanying star is an excellent strategy, but why not let these seasonal strategies simmer on the back burner for good? Bethlehem can still fondly refer to itself as Christmas City USA, but it should be branded as an East-coast leader in post-industrial economic recovery. BethWorks is the lynchpin in this new vision, and should be touted as a model for urban revitalization.

Brevity. Bethlehem is richer for its dynamic culture, storied past and diverse attractions. These are great compliments to a strong economy, but should no longer represent Bethlehem’s economic centerpiece. It is not in Bethlehem’s best interest to converge several different areas of attraction into one brand. Think if Microsoft or Coca Cola tried to incorporate all their products and history into their brand identity. The resulting hodgepodge would be confusing and forgettable. The fact is that new, memorable brands are forged in the cracks between existing brands. Focusing on its divergence from the current offering, and its uniqueness will allow Bethlehem to grow as a brand. Something simple, like “Bethlehem: Forging Ahead” would suffice, along with a strong visual depiction of Bethlehem’s industrial past wedded to its new and exciting economic future.In The Origin of Brands, Al and Laura Ries write “In building a brand for the long run, in every category you can name, the half is much more than the whole. A brand that appeals to every major market segment is doomed to become a minor brand…in the long run”. Heeding this advice, Bethlehem’s Marketing Council should carefully consider how it wants to market Bethlehem in the long run. If the limited goal of Bethlehem’s new branding campaign is to generate local and regional awareness of what the city has to offer, then perhaps sticking with the recently unveiled logo is appropriate. However, if the Council’s long term goal is to bill Bethlehem as a vital, explosive area of growth, then priorities need to be shifted toward creating a strong, categorical brand. As a taxpaying citizen, I don’t want to see Bethlehem’s potential hamstrung by a muddled, undervalued vision.

Something to think about: Convergence and Divergence

Darwin's The Origin of Species is probably the most important book since the Bible, quoted and extrapolated on at least as much, and yet, has been read by practically no one. Myself included. Why is this? Perhaps it's because the book is over 500 pages. Although length doesn't deter many many people from reading War and Peace, Atlas Shrugged, or Crime and Punishment. Nothing must irk anthropologists and sociologists more than when dear Darwin's ideas are misappropriated, twisted, tweaked, or taken out of context. Some people (religious fundamentalists) have made it their lifetime's work to lampoon and slander Darwin without ever really picking up his book. They reject "social Darwinism" (survival of the fittest in a social context) as cold, cruel, and undemocratic. And yet, they are completely missing the point of Darwin's groundbreaking work by invoking this malapropism.

Social Darwinism is a "misapplication of a biological principle" according to Samuel Shermis of Purdue University. The pseudo-philosophy is a vestige of 19th century philosopher Herbert Spencer's comments on Darwin's work. During the early twentieth century, the American capitalists embraced Social Darwinism with open arms. Societies, races, and businesses were all thought to be competing for resources, and it was determined that government was to have a very limited role in tinkering with what the market would and could naturally alleviate and equalize with time (even when dealing with corruption, excessive greed, and unfair business practices). Then the Great Depression hit, and WWII. Poor Darwin. He had his name unceremoniously attached with eugenics, and Nazism. And he studied turtles and birds. As Professor Shermis explains: "[social darwinists] believed that white Protestant Europeans had evolved much further and faster than other 'races'. And some, especially the followers of Herbert Spencer, took it one step further. Human society is always in a kind of evolutionary process in which the fittest- which happened to be those who can make lots of money--were chosen to dominate. There were armies of unfit, the poor, who simply could not compete. And just as nature weeds out the unfit, an enlightened society ought to weed out its unfit and permit them to die off so as not to weaken the racial stock."

Interesting how most people only know Darwin through some hackneyed, tangential and unscrupulous theory. I think it is time for some rediscovery, for some critical thinking and some rereading of the text that has influenced more ideas than practically any other published book.

Darwin writes about the idea of divergence. Divergence occurs naturally as species evolve and become different from one another because of changes in environment. Species evolve and also diverge. For example, humans have evolved and are continuing to evolve, but at some point in human history there was a common ancestor that we shared with other primates. Humans are just one branch of the great tree of life whose trunk stretches back to the beginning of life on this planet. The idea of divergence is important. It explains our world in more ways than you might think. For example, in The Origin of Brands Al and Laura Ries explore how divergence is a natural phenomenon of the business world. Products and services--like life on this planet--tend to diverge rather than converge, creating an infinitude of new brands and categories. Generally, products or services that do not prescribe to the principle of divergence, but rather that of convergence are doomed to failure. Amphibicars anyone? The Fax/Printer? Just two examples of how product convergence is an unnatural way to evolve in a market. Two species in our world will never converge, will never become one, so why should they in the business world? (Food for thought...aka drop those stocks whose company CEOs proclaim "convergence" as their guiding corporate technological ethos! And yes, there are many.)

I haven't finished the book yet, but more thoughts when I do. I am heartened that at least Darwin's true principles, writing and ideas are being explored in a meaningful way. Death to ignorance. Anti-Darwinists/strict creationists: read the books or familiarize yourselves with the actual theories you're talking about!

Using Common Sense: Think Intelligently About Intelligent Design

President Bush is a proponent of teaching Intelligent Design (ID) in schools. He recently said "I think that part of education is to expose people to different schools of thought". But what 'school of thought' is being advanced by the Intelligent Design hypothesis?--one whose only defense seems to be that it is incapable of scientific testing, and thus impregnable. To me, the concept of intelligent Design is muddy, nebulous and bankrupt, a fence-straddling pseudo-theory that provides a convenient alternative to those who want to pull their toes out of the icy waters of the evolution-creationism debate. Essentially, ID attempts to bridge creationism and evolution by attempting to prove neither. To most rational people, this should make the 'debate' seem altogether irrelevant.

Perhaps a short definition of Intelligent Design might be of benefit before we go any further. As defined on www.intelligentdesignnetword.org intelligent Design (ID) "...holds that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause rather than an undirected process such as natural selection. ID is thus a scientific disagreement with the core claim of evolutionary theory that the apparent design of living systems is an illusion."

Those in favor of ID have beef with Darwin's concept of evolution and natural selection (As defined by Daniel C. Dennett in The New York Times 08.28.05: Natural selection is "the process in which reproducing entities must compete for finite resources and thereby engage in a tournament of blind trial and error from which improvements automatically emerge.") ID proponents don't think that evolutionary biology is capable of explaining the infinite complexity of life on this planet, at least not convincingly, and that both religion and naturalism fail in explaining the origins of life because they are subjective sciences. If proponents of ID were writing a college paper advancing this hypothesis, they would be lucky to get a passing grade--because for all of its harmony, beauty, and deference, ID really is not advancing anything. It takes a crack at evolutionary biology as a deficient explanation for how we became what we are, dismisses religion for the same reason, but offers no viable alternatives to explain how we got here. Intelligent designers are playing a prosecutorial role, but claim that the burden of proof rests with the defense. Rhetoric aimed at exacerbating acknowledged loopholes in evolutionary theory is not science--and just because the president acknowledges ID's existence doesn't make it a theory.

What was perhaps at one time thought of as a panacea for the fiery creationism vs. evolution debate has succeeded in creating a miasma of scientific mis-citings and confusion regarding what is even considered science. Giving IDers the benefit of the doubt, I will concede that I believe there is room in this world for both Darwin and God. They are not as diametrically opposed as some might think. Plenty of literature has been written in recent years that tries to include evolution into God's overall plan. Personally I find the symbiosis less than convincing, and in the end, it all comes down to a personal decision. Utimately, one must ask: is teaching ID going to make that decision clearer? Does ID have anything intelligent to add to the current debate raging in schools other than the knucklebranied, relativistic "We can't really be sure or anything". Because if it doesn't, and we're confusing schoolchildren just for the sake of advancing some perverted notion of educational plurality, then we're really only fooling ourselves.

I am about half-way through Labyrinths by Jorge Luis Borges. Everything about the collection is fascinating. Many of Borges's short stories are critiques, or reactions to larger works that don't actually exist. Thinking about this concept takes some getting used to at first--especially since the stories are so intricately wrought that a mind unaware of Borges's devices would almost assume their veracity. I say 'almost', because reading Borges is like spending time exploring a lucid dream. Everything seems right, rational, ordered--but if you look closer, really examine things, that rational order breaks down. Ideas, and objects can unravel. Sharp edges are blurred, and frayed. I think that all the mystical, fantastic, unbelievable fates and dreams in Borges's stories form an extended allegory for the universe. Which rules the universe: chaos or reason?

I often find that the literature I like the most is that which is able to circumscribe me within the confines of a created, fantastic, yet believable world. Borges expertly orchestrates this circumscription. His obsessions are my obsessions, and his writing speaks to that part of me that constantly wonders about man, fate, the universe, and the origin of ideas.

For example, in "Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote" Borges describes French author-philosopher Pierre Menard's attempt to rewrite the Quixote word for word. In trying to become Cervantes, Menard creates, in the words of the narrator, a text that is "infinitely richer" than the original. The whole premise of the story seems fairly absurd, but also mind-bending. Borges puts forth question after silent question regarding the nature of literary accomplishment: is literature the property of any one person? Can any ideas ever be truly original? Is literature, like life, an infinitely cyclical continuum?

Borges provides the reader with fastidiously detailed accounts of fictional worlds--almost as if fiction were overwriting reality. He constantly erases the line between what we perceive as "real" and that which we relegate to imagination, chance, and fate, and dreams. For Borges, time forks and splits an infinitude of times. I now have a whole mess of things to think about. I half expect the book to fade in and out of existence when I'm reading it. Or maybe that was me fading in and out...

This is my first blog. I felt that it is time I conduct my twenty-something muses in a public forum. I'm 23. I am living at home and searching for a job in publishing, having just completed some post-graduate schooling this summer. My mind is a whirling dervish. I am trying to simultaneously understand the world, exist in it, and get ahead in it. Sometimes I think these endeavors are exclusive. I have found that the past two years have brought on an avalanche of confusion. Completing college, and being thrust into the world feeling woefully under-prepared to handle its responsibilities, gravities and expectations made for some mental turbulence.

My cerebral jostle was compounded by the fact that despite having a brain worth over $250,000 (private school and university) I found myself living at home and working an office job that gave me little mental stimulation in any area that interested me. But, hey, Office Experience counts for something. I chose to capitalize the words "Office Experience" because to me they symbolize college grads' servitude to an economy where a BA is about as unique as a barbed wire tattoo.

Office jobs are like toll-booths for recent college grads, areas of essential taxation on the road to career fulfillment. Most of us non-gifted, non-specialized, non-connected graduates volunteer for lackluster employment whose sole benefit will be resume padding. Office experience is an interview talking point. I understand that knowing how an office functions in important, but has anyone ever stopped and thought that we are committing at least a year of our lives to undertake this study? Office Experience jobs are rites of passage, although the hallway is lined with a series of little wooden arms that pop out of nowhere and smack your shins until you reach the end.

I find it a hard to pretend to be proud of my office experience when interviewing for jobs. But that is exactly what I have to do, because my potential employer is so darned interested in it. "You studied in Italy, were a Radio DJ, are familiar with Political Science, and that's great, but let's talk about this Office Experience of yours...". According to my most recent calculations, my ability to collate copies is directly proportional to my self-worth. Now I don't want to sound too much like Tyler Durden here, but I find the whole thing very comical, and only occasionally depressing. Trying to talk up a job that gave me a dreadful, heavy feeling in my stomach when I thought about it Sunday morning makes me feel like somewhat of a cad. But then I realize that I have been subscribing to situational ethics for a while, don't feel like stopping now, and that this little fudging of my true opinion is perfectly licensed, even condoned, as Tom DeLay has seemed to prove to all of us.