Monday, October 31, 2022

Books read in October 2022

New:
 
1.  Working with Difficult People: Handling the Ten Types of Problem People Without Losing your Mind by Amy Cooper Hakim and Muriel Solomon
2. Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid 

Reread:
 
1. Delusion in Death

Thursday, October 27, 2022

In which I do unspeakable things to sushi

As I've blogged about before, spicy food doesn't work for me. It's physically painful in a way that drowns out the underlying flavours, so I feel nothing but discomfort and experience none of the pleasure of the food.

An example of a food that is painfully spicy for me this way is wasabi.

But whenever I mention that wasabi is too spicy for me, pedants come swooping out of the woodwork saying "Wasabi isn't a spice, it's a mustard!!" (Often as though they're trying to make the argument "Wasabi is a mustard and you like mustard, therefore you actually like wasabi!")

After hearing this pedantry one too many times, I had an idea: if wasabi is so important to the sushi experience and wasabi actually is a mustard, maybe my sushi experience would be enhanced with one of the many other mustards I actually enjoy? 
 
So the next time I had sushi, I tried it with various mustards I have on hand. Regular yellow French's mustard, honey mustard, dijon mustard, that mustard in the jar from the Polish deli...

And in each case, it tasted like the mustard. With gentle undertones of the sushi.

Which was delicious, because mustard is delicious! But the flavours didn't enhance each other or harmonize in any particular way that was greater than the sum of its parts.

So I see no need to put mustard (or wasabi) on my sushi, but I wouldn't object if, somehow, my sushi arrived with mustard (but not wasabi) on it.

And if you're thinking "But sushi isn't sushi without wasabi," you can have my share of the wasabi.

Friday, October 14, 2022

Things that are getting worse

A strong narrative early in the pandemic was also if we do the right things, we'll be okay. Mask up, stay home, be kind, we'll get through this.
 
I've been noticing lately that this element of reassuring people it will be okay is gone from the narrative. They're removing protections, but there's no "It's okay now" to it.
 
I fully realize there was a propaganda element to the messaging that everything will be fine, but now it isn't even an element of propaganda. There seems to be no more interest by those in power in having people think we'll be okay. Early in the pandemic, much of my translation work was morale-related. I haven't seen any attempt to boost or maintain morale in a very long time.

***

A similarly strong narrative when I was growing up was the idea that if you do what you're supposed to, things will turn out well. Go to school, get good grades, get a good job, you'll be able to support yourself and build a better life for your family. 
 
I'm not seeing this narrative around lately. I've even seen some voices acting like it's unreasonable to expect to be able to raise a family or even support oneself on a given job. Those in power complain that no one wants to work, while disavowing the employer's end of the bargain.

Again, I know there's an element of propaganda to the messaging that if you work hard you'll be successful. I know from Thomas Piketty that the economic success this messaging promises is specific to a brief period in the mid-20th century. But, again, it's telling that they aren't even attempting this messaging any more, aren't even hinting that there might be something better or different. It's just "Work or you're Bad and Wrong."

***

Another mid-20th-century narrative, often used in WWII, was the notion of sacrificing for the greater good. I keep thinking about this, thinking about how they used a sort of WWII narrative early in the pandemic, and how that contrasts with the current state of removing protections and asking people (especially school children!) to sacrifice for . . . nothing. 
 
Nothing is gained by allowing COVID to rip through society. It doesn't make anything better for anyone. Some people say that they're doing this for the economy, but it doesn't help the economy to have millions ill or disabled (or dead). They're actively removing protective measures that actually help the greater good, and instead making people sacrifice for nothing.

***

As a second-generation Canadian, the very premise of the origin story I was raised with was a better life for one's children. My grandparents' jobs were worse, my parents jobs were better. My grandparents' houses were smaller and older, my parents' house was bigger and newer.

But that dream stopped with my parents' generation. I've never been able to afford a house like my parents', even out in the small town where we lived. I was, for a brief period of time, able to afford a house like my grandparents', but in today's market I no longer can.

In fact, in today's market, I could no longer afford my actual condo that I actually live in if I didn't already own it. My salary is 25% higher than it was when I bought my condo preconstruction 10 years ago, but the prices of condos in my building have nearly doubled in the same period of time.

I was looking at a Twitter thread about this - people who can no longer afford to live in places where they previously lived, even though they now make more money. And there were some comments - which, as far as I can tell, were from regular people, not, like, real estate speculators - to the effect of "Welcome to real life, suck it up and get roommates."

So not only is a better life for one's children implausible, but a not-constantly-getting-worse life for oneself is so implausible that there are regular people who think it's unreasonable to be able to afford the same home you lived in when you were making less money.

***

Years ago, after I missed an unprecedented and never-since-repeated Eddie Izzard work in progress show here in Toronto, I set up a Google Alert for Eddie Izzard. I deliberately have it set to "all results" rather than "best results", which means the signal to noise ratio is not so good - it includes casual passing mentions of Eddie, not just items about her. (This blog post will probably show up in it.) But it only takes a second to scroll through in my feed reader, and I now don't have to worry about missing anything.

Recently, there has been a massive surge in transphobia in this Google Alert feed. When I started out, it often went months without any transphobia whatsoever. Now I'm seeing transphobia almost every day. Same transgender public figure, same wide-scope Google Alert, but tons more transphobia than a decade ago.

In 2010, advice columnist Dan Savage started the It Gets Better Project, with the goal of preventing suicide in queer youth by talking to them about how life will improve in adulthood. I agree with his thesis and it aligns with my experience (I can walk down the street and people ignore me!), but it also seems like it isn't happening any more, at least not on a societal/longitudinal level. Discourse is reaching me where queerness is being equated with pedophilia, which is not something I've heard since the 20th century.

This kind of thing should be an appalling horror story of the olden days that Kids Today cannot fathom, not an actual thing that's actually happening in reality!
 
***

There's a conventional wisdom that people's mental health is worsening. Some people are quick to blame remote work or online school, as though proximity to random people without regard for compatibility is some kind of mental health panacea.

But the more I think about it, the more I wonder if the root of worsening mental health is that so many things are getting worse that the idea of things getting better has become so implausible that it isn't even part of propaganda.