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In the last generation or so, the classic script of Babe Ruth, Harmon Killebrew and Rivera has largely deteriorated into a mess of squiggles and personal branding.
It is not just baseball, of course. The legible signature, once an indelible mark of personal identity, is increasingly rare in modern life. From President Obama, who sometimes uses an autopen, to patrons at a restaurant, few take the time to carefully sign their names.
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“The study, by Balazs Kovacs of the University of Lugano and Amanda Sharkey of the University of Chicago, compared online reader reviews for 32 pairs of books that either won or were nominated for a major literary prize. They found that winning a prestigious award not only garners more attention for a book, but also more negative reviews.”
“There is no greater unifier in American culture than professional football, which is followed by 68 percent of men and 42 percent of women — Republicans and Democrats in equal numbers. Game telecasts accounted for nine of the 10 most-watched programs in 2013, and the previous three Super Bowls were the most-viewed television programs of all time in the United States.”
“Forget biker chic or even mixologist chic. For beard purists, Mr. Carney’s adoption of the whiskered look marked an inevitable mainstreaming of a look that defined a subculture. To the Brooklyn set, it’s an echo of that post-’60s moment when longhair migrated from the muddy fields of Woodstock to crew-cut turf like country music and the National Football League. To the culture at large, the whiskered chin suddenly looks as divorced from its rebel origins as the Jolly Roger flag on a Pittsburgh Pirates beer koozie.”
– http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/09/fashion/the-brooklyn-beard-goes-mainstream.html?ref=todayspaper
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Rising expectations aren’t a sign of immature “entitlement.” They’re a sign of progress — and the wellspring of future advances. The same ridiculous discontent that says Starbucks ought to offer vegan pumpkin lattes created Starbucks in the first place. Two centuries of refusing to be satisfied produced the long series of innovations that turned hunger from a near-universal human condition into a “third world problem.”
Complaining about small annoyances can be demoralizing and obnoxious, but demanding complacency is worse. The trick is to simultaneously remember how much life has improved while acknowledging how it could be better. In the new year, then, may all your worries be first world problems.
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– http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-01-02/two-cheers-for-first-world-problems-.html
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In the late 1800s, elite colleges admitted students from private schools based on entrance exams in Latin and Greek. State schools let in almost everyone who graduated from high schools certified by the universities’ professors. It wasn’t until private colleges opened their admissions to public school students that anyone saw the need for an application. There were more students than the schools could serve, and administrators noted with dismay that selecting based on academic merit alone dangerously increased the percentage of Jewish students.
In 1919, Columbia University unveiled the first modern college application. The eight-page form requested, among other things, a photograph, “religious affiliation,” and “mother’s maiden name in full.”
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– http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/10/magazine/who-made-that-college-application.html?ref=todayspaper
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The Cold War era I grew up in was a world of insulated walls, both geopolitical and economic, so the pace of change was slower — you could work for the same company for 30 years — and because bosses had fewer alternatives, unions had greater leverage. The result was a middle class built on something called a high-wage or a decent-wage medium-skilled job, and the benefits that went with it.
The proliferation of such jobs meant that many people could lead a middle-class lifestyle — with less education and more security — because they didn’t have to compete so directly with either a computer or a machine that could do their jobs faster and better (by far the biggest source of job churn) or against an Indian or Chinese who would do their jobs cheaper. And by a middle-class lifestyle, I don’t mean just scraping by. I mean having status: enough money to buy a house, enjoy some leisure and offer your kids the opportunity to do better than you.
But thanks to the merger of globalization and the I.T. revolution that has unfolded over the last two decades — which is rapidly and radically transforming how knowledge and information are generated, disseminated and collaborated on to create value — “the high-wage, medium-skilled job is over,” says Stefanie Sanford, the chief of global policy and advocacy for the College Board. The only high-wage jobs that will support the kind of middle-class lifestyle of old will be high-skilled ones, requiring a commitment to rigorous education, adaptability and innovation, she added.
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– http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/10/opinion/sunday/friedman-why-i-still-support-obamacare.html?ref=todayspaper
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To compete for the best millennial talent, companies are having to change in fundamental ways. Goldman Sachs, for example, recently announced its intention to improve the work environment of its junior bankers by having them work less. Of course, that flies in the face of Wall Street tradition, in which new recruits often work late into the night and for entire weekends.
Goldman made the change partly because it was losing millennials to start-ups. But start-ups typically offer less pay and equally long hours, which suggests that providing more time off isn’t the only answer. If corporate cultures don’t align with the transparency, free flow of information, and inclusiveness that millennials highly value — and that are also essential for learning and successful innovation — the competitiveness of many established businesses will suffer.
Millennials are becoming more aware of their rising worth. Coupling their ability to learn quickly with their insistence on having a say, they pack a powerful punch. But rather than complaining, it’s time to embrace millennials for what they can offer, to add experience from older workers to the mix, and to watch innovation explode.
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– http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/10/jobs/embracing-the-millennials-mind-set-at-work.html?ref=todayspaper
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Why coffee? For starters, it’s the second-largest traded commodity in the world, after oil. Despite heavy marketing efforts, hardly anyone picks a gas station for the brand. But they’ll administer a pistol-whipping over coffee.
Pierre Bourdieu, whose 1979 book Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste is rather impenetrable, had a theory I like:
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Pour-over coffee—waiting ten minutes for coffee to trickle through a specially-made Japanese funnel—comes to mind. Taste, including the mouth stuff, is completely inseparable from culture. We own no part of our aesthetics. Instead we use preferences to create and understand the social structures we are part of. Hard workers “Run on Dunkin’.” Most Bay Area snob-shops offer a personal coffee experience, each cup made just for you.
But as soon as the middle class latches onto the favorites of the rich and famous, the wealthy move on.
Starbucks worked for awhile, with its grande/venti code and delightfully artsy interior. But lattes haven’t been enough for years; even McDonald’s serves them now. Where to go but snobbier precincts?
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– http://www.theawl.com/2013/10/what-does-your-coffee-say-about-you-and-is-it-something-terrible
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We’re told that this bike program is modeled after the one in Paris. But in Paris, the bikes are a silvery gray and the sponsors have discreet small tattoos on the bike frame. Paris bikes blend. They respect the romance that is Paris.
And what a bargain Citibank got. To put that $41 million in perspective, a co-op at 640 Park Avenue recently sold for $23 million, and Calvin Klein’s Hamptons house reportedly cost around $75 million.
In other words, for chump change to a billionaire, Mr. Bloomberg let Citibank alter the color palette of Manhattan.
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– http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/20/opinion/sunday/color-me-blue.html?ref=todayspaper
shaun james bockert 