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Wishing For The Apocalypse
March 6, 2016

The probability of apocalypse soon cannot be realistically estimated, but it is surely too high for any sane person to contemplate with equanimity. —Noam Chomsky

 

charles i. letbetter - waiting for the apocalypse

Our society has reached a point where the disasters of apocalypse are viewed as preferable to the fallacies of the status quo.

12 I looked when He broke the sixth seal, and there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth [made] of hair, and the whole moon became like blood; 13 and the stars of the sky fell to the earth, as a fig tree casts its unripe figs when shaken by a great wind. 14 The sky was split apart like a scroll when it is rolled up, and every mountain and island were moved out of their places. 15 Then the kings of the earth and the great men and the commanders and the rich and the strong and every slave and free man hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains; 16 and they said to the mountains and to the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the presence of Him who sits on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb; 17 for the great day of their wrath has come, and who is able to stand?” —Revelation 6:12-17 NASB

My late father, the preacher, held certain views of the Bible more because of tradition than actual academic understanding of scripture. One of those views was that there is a coming apocalypse from which Christians would be spared by the second-coming of Christ. That, in a nutshell, is the essence of a pre-millennial view. Popa likely held that viewpoint because when he was growing up and going to school in rural Arkansas there was no other viewpoint. It would not be until many years later that he would even be exposed to alternative theologies and when, as an adult, I first approached him with the concept of amillennialism, that there was neither a second coming nor a god-appointed apocalypse, he considered such a thing unbiblical.

Regardless of one’s millennial approach, the universal opinion was always that the apocalypse was bad. That whole thing about hiding in caves and begging to be caught in an avalanche doesn’t need a lot of translation. Regardless of its literal or metaphoric details, an apocalypse was something to be avoided. Worse than any war we have ever experienced, an apocalypse would leave few alive and those few would rather be dead.

Christianity isn’t the only major religion to have an apocalyptic scenario in their cannon. Islam teaches that Isa will return and be accompanied by Mahdi to destroy Christian innovation and convert the world to Islam. Listen carefully and you’ll hear Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad speak often of the return of Mahdi. Ancient Mayans had an apocalyptic tale as well, though theirs may have come true with the arrival of Cortez on the continent. No matter where one finds such prognostication, the end results are always the same: nearly everyone dies.

When I look at contemporary society, though, the way it has transitioned over the past five years, it seems that we have gone from fearing an apocalypse to actually wanting one to happen. As evidence, let me offer the popularity of the movie, Mad Max: Fury Road, which won six Oscars. It wasn’t all that long ago that such tales were seen as cautionary, a warning to avoid such calamity. With this movie, though, the dangers of the apocalypse and its social fallout are preferable to a tyrannical government. Audiences cheer on those who cause chaos against a status quo in which they feel they have no control.

We would be short-sighted, however, if we blamed everything on government or expected a presidential candidate to have any hope of adequately addressing our situation. Government, like it or not, is a reflection of the people it represents. If there is corruption it is because we, as a collective society, are corrupt. If the government behaves immorally it is only because we have given it permission to do so on our behalf. We cannot blame government for our ills when we are the government.

There was a new article posted to Psychology Today this morning warns against the dangerous lack of empathy in our society. Attorney David Niose makes an interesting observation:

It’s noteworthy, and undeniable, that two antonyms of empathy—disdain and indifference—have become cornerstones of American politics. When outsiders are routinely reviled, targeted for blame by an impulsive population that isn’t capable of rational thought, bad things can happen. Add doses of anti-intellectualism, nationalism, and militarism to the mix, and you have a formula for disaster. Just ask Germany.

The reference to Germany and, by extension, the crimes of World War II are troubling. Granted, we’ve heard such mean-spirited diatribe in political circles during every election cycle of the past two decades. I find it interesting that the further we get away from having leadership that actually remembers and participated in that horrible war, barely preventing an apocalypse of our own doing, the more willing we are to accuse those who disagree with us of harboring the same sentiments as war criminals. Still, yanking the conversation out of the political realm for a moment, Mr. Noise’s observations regarding the lack of empathy are accurate. Without empathy, we are far too eager to destroy our fellow man and we are less likely to care by what means we do so.

I once laughed out loud at the religious fear tactic that one needed to “get right with God” because the apocalypse is surely coming and the Anti-Christ is sure among us and all those who don’t believe are going to DIE or wish they could. Not only did I not believe in an apocalyptic event forecasted by a crazy man on an island some 1900 years ago, but I couldn’t believe that society would collapse to such a point as to allow it. I was young. I was naïve.

Now, I’m scared. Religious extremists have shifted from wanting to avoid apocalypse to embracing it. Those disenchanted on both ends of the political spectrum no longer believe a solution can be found within the system and are willing to scrap everything and start over with whatever remnant survives. Marginalized populations made economic slaves by the greed of corporate demagogues stand ready to blow up factories and sacrifice their fellow workers in order to make their voice heard.

Those wishing for the  apocalypse are almost certainly those who understand the consequences the least. Real life is not like the movies. Charlize Theron, as beautiful as she is, is not going to save anyone. When the apocalypse comes, the majority of us will vanish in a flash and it won’t be because some demi-god suddenly returned but because nuclear annihilation is a real thing. The only thing good to come of an apocalypse is that the overpopulation problem will be solved.

I dislike any policy or authority based on fear, but the pressing threat of apocalypse should cause us all to be very frightened, consider very carefully for whom we vote, and think more empathetically about those around us. If we don’t all thrive together, we shall surely die together.

Boom. Flash. Bye.

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Death Becomes Us All
March 5, 2016
charles i. letbetter - death becomes us all

Whenever I prepare for a journey I prepare as though for death. Should I never return, all is in order. —Katherine Mansfield

 

charles i. letbetter - death becomes us all

The list of this year’s notable deaths has already become quite large. Yet, what about notable lives?

I was just finishing my final fashion review for the day, yesterday, when word came that country singer Joey Fleek had passed. No one was surprised, of course. Mrs. Fleek’s battle with cervical cancer was well documented. She had returned to her childhood home here in Indiana and left quietly, surrounded by her family. I’m sure there will be no shortage of tributes and memorials forthcoming.

When I woke up this morning, two more names had been added to the list. Novelist Pat Conroy, author of books such as The Prince of Tides, died of pancreatic cancer at age 70.  I found it interesting that, according to his obituary on NPR, he wrote as a way of attempting to find out who he really was, and did not feel as though he had succeeded, or, at least, had not yet finished.

Bud Collins, the tennis writer, and commentator died yesterday as well. Bud was known not only for his extremely deep knowledge of the history of tennis, but the very bright and colorful pants he wore, which really stood out in a sport where anything other than white might be considered out of bounds. His was the voice I most associate with the U.S. Open and it will be there that he is most missed.

We are only at the beginning of March, we’ve not yet made it to those dreadful Ides, and already death of notable persons is a leading topic for the year. I’m beginning to wonder if this might be the year in which everyone important dies, which would be a rather unflattering assessment of anyone left. I never consider it a good omen when someone’s death is a trending topic, and especially not when three of the top ten social media trends are about people dying.

Our society has a strange fascination with death; to some degree we always have. What’s interesting, though, is that our interest in the topic has grown more as the very act of dying has become less common. Prior to the discovery of penicillin, death was just an everyday sort of thing. If one so much as received a simple cut on the arm, one could die. Got the flu? Hello, death. Eat some bad barbecue? Death would be right there waiting. If incidents of death by cancer and heart disease seemed less frequent, it was due in no small part to the fact a lot of people didn’t live long enough for those fatal diseases to develop. Whooping cough was a more frequent cause of death than either cancer or heart attack.

Oh, that reminds me, the baby who made headlines when his mom dressed him like Senator Bernie Sanders last month? Word of his death made its way into the press yesterday, as well. The little guy, not yet four months old, died of SIDS a couple of weeks ago. Unfortunately, the child’s mother comes off as a bit unscrupulous as she begs for money to cover funeral costs and counseling.

What bothers me most, perhaps, is that this preponderance of death does not seem to be doing its usual job of forcing us to examine our own lives. Under normal conditions, one might look at all these deaths and think, “maybe I need to be eating better,” or “perhaps I should be more careful when I’m driving.” Death should have a way of reminding us of our own mortality and encourage us to lead better lives. For some reason, though, that isn’t happening.

Here’s a question for you to ask yourself: Is my life notable enough for anyone outside my family to mourn my death? We notice the deaths of people like Joey Fleek, Pat Conroy, and Bud Collins because of what they did while they were alive. None of them had spectacular deaths. All passed quietly in their beds surrounded by their families. If their exit from this world is worth mentioning it is because their presence in this world had some lasting impact. Without anything exceptional in their lives, all they would receive would be the standard four-inch, single column obituary in the local paper. Their lives are what give us reason to notice their deaths.

So, what of you and me? What are we doing to make our lives exceptional so that, when our time comes, people notice our demise as well? What contributions are we making to this planet that are worth remembering? Will they say we gave generously of our time to help others, or is our only claim to fame the number of flaming comments we left under online news articles? Are we living lives of creativity and invention that are worth remembering or are we too busy bickering over someone’s sexual practices to do anything genuinely productive?

We who are not yet dead have myriad choices regarding the lives we lead.  We can be exceptional, each of us in unique ways that separate us from everyone else. So, why aren’t we? Are we afraid? Or are we just lazy?

The year is too young to think that we won’t visit this topic again soon. Hopefully, it will not be you we are discussing, but if it should be, I hope we have something more to say than, “He/she was on Facebook a lot.” Live so the world has reason to notice your death.

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Creativity Breeds Frustration
March 4, 2016

Our fatigue is often caused not by work, but by worry, frustration and resentment. —Dale Carnegie

 

charles i. letbetter - creativity breeds frustration

Creative people are often the most frustrated people because the more one tries something new the more likely it isn’t going to work

Most days, the right-brained business-oriented lines of thinking don’t necessarily mesh well with the left-brained creative directions we want to take. This morning was the exception, though, as I watched a video of Ian Bremmer, President and Founder of Eurasia Group, giving advice to his 20-year-old self. One of the first and most important things he says, and something I’m certainly going to incorporate into my compendium of advice, is this:

Most things don’t work— who cares? … Most things you try, most things I’ve tried, haven’t worked! And even when they do work it’s only because you tried them eight different ways and then finally someone says, “Okay kid, go away, I’ll give you a buck.” You have to not allow failure to affect your sense of self.

If there were ever a piece of advice necessary for every creative person I know, it is that last sentence: “You have to not allow failure to affect your sense of self.” Write that down. Etch those words on your brain. This is something you need to know merely know, but to understand and feel at your deepest levels of being.

Frustration is so very common for creatives because we do try things so many different ways so many different times and the vast majority of those times we fall flat on our faces. While we’re hopefully smart enough to not keep trying the exact same thing over and over when it doesn’t work, trying different things one after another and still not finding what works leads to a level of frustration that has many of us ready to bang our heads against walls.

Perhaps this is why creative people so often go insane, or, at least, are perceived as such. Repeated failure wears down our self-confidence. We like to think we know what we’re doing. When standing before a client we have to present ourselves as though we know what we’re doing. But when it comes to the actual act of creating something new, something different, something we’ve never done before, the greater portion of our efforts don’t work. They might come close, but if we’re not satisfied with the outcome, or if the client isn’t satisfied with the outcome, we feel we have failed.

There are actually many points of frustration for creatives. People don’t always take us or our ideas seriously. Not everyone looks at what we do as work. Because being creative often means long periods of contemplating, thinking, mulling over options and their potential outcomes in our minds, non-creative people often get the impression we’re not actually doing anything. Creative people, including Thomas Edison and Albert Einstein, understand the benefit of a nap, but to our non-creative friends we’re just being lazy. So, they interrupt us, ask us, or perhaps insist upon us, to do different things that have a greater appearance of productivity. All these things lead to huge amounts of frustration.

Resources, or a lack thereof, are also a frequent point of frustration. For example, let’s say I have a concept that requires 30 yards of chiffon; not tulle, mind you, because tulle and chiffon have different opacity levels, reflect light in different ways, and require different support systems and methods of stitching. The concept might be wonderful, but where am I going to find 30 yards of chiffon around Indianapolis and even if I do find it how am I suppose to pay for such an expensive material? Even when materials and resources are not especially expensive, they can be difficult to find or one may simply not have the knowledge base and tools to work with them appropriately.

Our frustration levels eventually become disabling. After so many failures, we give up. Why keep wasting our time, we think. There’s always someone pushing us to, “go out and get a real job.” After all, we still have to pay bills, buy food, keep a roof over our heads. Creativity doesn’t always pay the best and the gas company won’t accept your latest painting as payment.

How do we cope with such frustration? How do we keep going until something does finally work? Some drink until the pain goes away. Folks in creative states such as Washington and Colorado smoke until the haze in the air matches the haze in their minds, and sometimes in that haze they find clarity. Everyone has their own way of coping, but unfortunately, not all those mechanisms are positive. When our sense of self has been defeated we lash out, we say stupid things, we do stupid things, we behave in ways we later regret, we do things that ultimately are counterproductive to being creative. We grow all the more frustrated.

I can’t prescribe a solution for you. We each have to wrestle our own frustrations, our own demons, and find what works for us. Maybe it’s long walks.  Maybe it’s traveling and taking in new scenery. Maybe it’s spending time with someone who understands. Whatever it is, we have to find that thing, that solution to our frustration, before it drives us mad. Take comfort in knowing that we all share in these frustrations, even if one runs a multi-billion dollar enterprise. Frustration is part of the human existence.

Not everything you may do today will work. That’s okay. You’re being creative. You’re trying, and the solution will come. Until then, keep trying. Survive. Continue.

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Quality Or Quantity
March 3, 2016
charles i. letbetter - quality or quantity

Respect the masterpiece. It is true reverence to man. There is no quality so great, none so much needed now. —Frank Lloyd Wright

 

charles i. letbetter - quality or quantity

How many masterpieces should one have? Quality that is so high cannot be so frequently repeated.

There are 16 images to the set from which these pictures are taken. I had difficulty choosing two. While the whole set is creative, the quality isn’t there and I know why: I rushed. These images come from a point in 2010 when I was doing nothing but shooting during the week, saving all the editing until Saturday, and publishing everything on Sunday morning. Looking back, the whole schedule was a bit insane. I would hit Saturday afternoon having anywhere from six to twelve sets of pictures waiting to be processed and struggling to find both the creativity and the time to get them done. I was pounding energy drinks and coffee and making poor judgement calls in the interest of time.

If we are going to improve the state of creativity, we have to simultaneously improve the quality of what we produce. One of the mistakes we made when everything first started going digital was assuming that we could now mass-produce art of any medium. Because the production seemed easier and appeared to take less time, we mistakenly assumed that meant we could and should produce more. For photographers, that meant shooting 200-300 frames per set and then processing up to 100 of those. I remember looking at the back of a camera and thinking, “Wow, that’s not going to need any processing at all. This is great!” In hindsight, the level of our stupidity seems obvious. Unfortunately, we are still paying for those errors. Too many clients think we can turn out new material overnight, if not sooner, and do so in large volume. Doing so, however, means sacrificing quality.

More is not better. A certain rapper released a new, heavily anticipated album online last month. He allowed the album to be sold for 24 hours, then took it down. Now, he’s saying he has another new album coming out. What does that say about the quality and content of either album? Granted, I’m a bit biased in that I’m not a fan of this particular artist, which is why I’m not using his name, but I don’t know any artists who could turn around two new albums in less than a year, let alone two weeks. Quality inevitably suffers.

Fashion is making a similar mistake, constantly churning out new, cheap, inexpensive clothing so that stores can, in theory, completely turn over their inventory in eight weeks. This is the disease known as fast fashion and it has done a very good job of killing off mid-level retailers, undercutting their prices with cheaply made material. Quality is non-existent with these brands and, ultimately, one ends up spending more on their clothes than if they had purchased high-quality luxury brands once.

Are we killing off the masterpiece?  Not everything an artist does, even the most creative of artist, is a masterpiece. To count as a masterpiece, a work has to achieve not only in terms of creativity but in matters of quality as well. Imagine what would have happened had Frank Lloyd Wright built houses that fell down; it wouldn’t matter how many of them were built nor how incredibly creative they were, without quality they would be worthless. The same holds true for every genre and every medium. We do better to take our time, be diligent, and perfect the one rather than trying to take the Wal-Mart approach of profiting from volume.

By over-creating works of poor quality, we reduce the overall value of all our work. When the world is flooded with readily available photography from every possible source, then it stops valuing photography. When YouTube can deliver chains of “experts” on every conceivable topic, we stop valuing experts. When iTunes makes it possible for anyone to release a new album, we stop valuing new music. When it comes to matters of artistic content, the volume approach simply does not work.

Our culture needs a creative revolution to be sure, but we must be careful that in doing so we do not overpopulate the earth with that which is too hastily produced and manufactured in such volume that we sacrifice quality. Creativity and quality must go hand in hand. Anything less is just landfill fodder.

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Creative Risks And Sacrifices
March 2, 2016
charles i. letbetter -creative risks and sacrifices

To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle, requires creative imagination and marks real advance in science. —Albert Einstein

 

charles i.letbetter - creative risks and sacrifice

Being genuinely creative means upping our risk factor and being willing to sacrifice our standing in the status quo

Once upon a time, I was very open to taking risks while out shooting. I’ve stood on the most narrow of ledges. I’ve allowed myself to be dangled from the tops of high walls and cliffs. I’ve shot in situations where the threads of a safety harness were all that stood between me and certain death. Each of those shoots was thrilling and exhilarating at levels that are difficult to describe. The adrenaline rush one gets from such an experience is almost more exciting than the photograph itself.

Those days, unfortunately, are gone. Taking physical risks takes a toll on one’s body and mine has decided that it no longer wants to participate in that game. If I want thrill and excitement, I’m going to have to find it elsewhere. My risks are going to have to be more creative if I’m going to take them.

Creative risk taking may seem rather benign. After all, mixing disparate media is hardly life-threatening and misusing Photoshop tools to create a different effect is not likely to land one in the hospital unless one gets so excited by the outcome that they spill hot coffee onto bare skin. Yet, to generate the real, new, view-altering creativity that our culture needs to get it kicked off high center, artists of every genre need to take on a level of risk that is going to be uncomfortable.

Being creative, in of itself, is not especially difficult, but rather a matter of changing how one chooses to view their art. There is a quote from the late Steve Jobs that I think fits this situation quite well:

Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things.

People who are creative, regardless of medium or genre, are naturally inclined to see things differently, to put together pieces that no one had put together before. We see it perhaps most often in fashion where, just in the past two days, two different designers have put dresses on the outside of other garments. One worked better than the other, but the fact remains that both saw something put together in a way that no one had attempted before, and both were willing to take the risk of putting those looks on the runway.

What is it we’re risking? More than anything, creative people have to be willing to put their reputation on the line. When we do something different, something unexpected, there is always a very high chance that no one else is going to like it. For that matter, we may not like it ourselves once we’ve had a few days to sleep with our work. The risk has grown in this digital culture when we are pushed to put something new and different online several times a day. If one wants to be an Instagram star, one has to actually put material on Instagram. What happens when you put something out there you later regret?

When one is creating something in which one believes, though, it is worth potentially sacrificing one’s reputation in one area in order to build it in another. Consider that 40 years ago the whole of my reputation was in music. After several years of struggling, trying to go back and forth, I finally had to make the difficult decision that if I was going to be committed to photography that I needed to sacrifice what I was doing in music; not that I’ve abandoned music entirely, but I had to let go of my reputation there so that I could more firmly establish one where I am known as a photographer.

Any risk we take, anything we sacrifice for the sake of creativity, is likely a temporary matter. In many cases, a respected artist can creatively shift their work and any hit to their reputation be temporary. For example. Steven Tyler’s latest album is full of country music, not rock. He’s taking a substantial risk both creatively and may yet end up sacrificing a bit of his reputation if the album doesn’t sell well. His risks are mitigated, though, by the depth of his experience and the presence of a fan base that pretty much doesn’t care what he does. Not every artist enjoys having that kind of creative capital to throw around.

The older we get, the more risk-averse we naturally are. We have struggled for what we have and the thought of possibly losing it doesn’t set well because we know we may not have the luxury of time to rebuild what we might potentially lose.  Yet, if we are to continue to be creative, if we are going to genuinely do something that makes a lasting difference in our culture, we have to take those risks and be willing to make those sacrifices. Anything less is a creative copout.

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Perfection Fails Creativity
March 1, 2016
charles i. letbetter - perfection fails creativity

Have no fear of perfection – you’ll never reach it. —Salvador Dali

 

charles i. letbetter perfection fails creativity

By pursuing perfection, we cut ourselves off from creative options we might otherwise explore

Please pardon me for name dropping, but this story loses significance without it.

Standing next to the late Helmut Newton one day, he reached into his bag and pulled out his old 35mm camera, sans lens cap, checked his film, and started shooting. After having taken about a dozen shots, he turns the camera around and looks at the lens; it was covered in dust. The whole camera, for that matter, was somewhat less tidy than one might expect. Worn, obviously well-used, there were smudges and dirt on the body as well as the lens. Helmut sighed, took out his shirttail, and quickly rubbed it over the face of the lens.

One of his long-time assistants ran over with a different lens and said, “Here, this one’s clean.”

Helmut replied, “But this is the one I want; it’ll do.” He then proceeded to finish the set, creating wonderful images with an interesting touch of texture in the shadows.

Some have called Newton’s photography perfection, but I was there; it wasn’t. While there were things he would fuss about, especially regarding composition relative to light, there were plenty of other issues he let slide. He was always more concerned with the creative aspect than he was perfection.

By contrast, anyone who has worked around photographers in general, especially younger photographers, has met that one who is never quite satisfied. They’ll mess with lights for hours, fuss over the slightest wrinkle in a backdrop, scream about whether there is enough white showing in a model’s eyes, and complain that everything on the set is not perfect. They produce technically accurate photos, but their images lack any passion or creativity.

I’m not saying one shouldn’t strive for a certain amount of excellence in their work. By all means, whether one is taking a picture or writing a song or painting a landscape there is a given standard of excellence below which a work is not considered viable. To be so consumed with the ultimate perfection in one’s work, though, achieves only technical excellence and results in work that is ultimately boring.

Perfection is not just a creative problem, but a psychological issue. A 2008 article in Psychology Today states that, “… perfectionism is a crime against humanity.” Our society requires flexibility, adaptation, and accepting ambiguity if we are to survive. Being a perfectionist makes one a slave in addition to creative a level of psychological stress. Perfectionists equate mistakes with complete failure and who can stand up to that kind of pressure?

 has written a three-part article on the perils of perfection wherein she states:

At the core, perfectionism is about fears of failure and rejection and trying to keep ourselves protected. Perfectionism is a defense that tricks us into believing that it protects us. If we perceive the possibility of an attack, we get back into our shell to protect ourselves. When we engage in this never ending cycle, we self-sabotage and set ourselves for failure.

Creativity defies perfection. Being creative means taking risks, breaking rules, stretching outside one’s comfort zone and taking sometimes severe risks. Perhaps one of the biggest risks is  that other people may not like your work. Again, that’s not to say that there aren’t standards, but when we’re being our most creative we are also most susceptible to criticism. We are always targets of criticism for those who just don’t “get it,” but we should never let that keep us from trying something different, something new.

I look back through my archives at various attempts to do something different. Some I absolutely abhor and shudder to think that I ever shared them publicly; they no longer meet my standards for which is acceptable. I look at others, though, and wish that I could maintain that same level of creativity in everything I do. Yet, one of the challenges of being creativity is that it is not a constant. As new ideas pass through our mind some are inevitably more viable than others. Sometimes we don’t have the resources, in other instances we don’t have the time. With such fluctuating variables, attempting to impose perfection on top of it all  simply opens the door to what we perceive as failure.

I wrote yesterday how frustrated I am with the boring state of the arts and how popular culture has imploded. Our drive toward perfection has led to a sameness that is void of passion. There is a lack of experimentation and no one is ready to take risks. Too often, even when one does take risks and tries to buck “the system,” they get shut down, de-funded, or otherwise ignored.

The solution requires more than just changing our personal attitudes toward perfection but simultaneously rejecting it from the media we consume. Avoid the boring. Stay away from the movies that are just like all the other drivel you’ve seen. Avoid the music that sounds exactly like all the other drivel you hear. Don’t accept digitally driven perfection that compromises true creativity.

Perfection is the enemy because it cannot, ever, be achieved and our drive toward that unattainable goal blocks our ability to be creative. Let your creativity run free, let mistakes happen. We’ll all be happier for it.

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Popped Culture Implosion
February 29, 2016
charles i. letbetter - popped culture implosion

Creativity is putting your imagination to work, and it’s produced the most extraordinary results in human culture. —Ken Robinson

 

charles i. letbetter - popped culture implosion

There is a lack of truly defining moments in contemporary culture that dooms us to boredom

No, I did not watch the Oscars last night, and no, it wasn’t because of any boycott, though the issue of racism in Hollywood needs a lot more than just platitudes thrown at it. I didn’t watch the Oscars last night because there was absolutely nothing about the show worthy of holding my interests for three-plus hours after a long day that started at 3:00 AM EST. To have stayed up that late would have required feeling passionate about some element of the show and there was nothing deserving of my passion. I had a much better time putting my head on my pillow and going to sleep.

2015’s Oscars views were off by 18% from the previous year, hitting a six-year low. Last night’s numbers aren’t in yet (7:00 AM EST), but I will be tremendously surprised if they’re all that much higher, if any at all. And while it might be tempting to blame things such as #OscarsSoWhite, the reality is that popular culture has popped, imploded into a pile of monotony that is about as exciting as the underside of a dog house. There was no reason to stay up and see what won the Best Picture award because I hadn’t bothered to see any of the nominated films. Spotlight, the film that won, hadn’t even managed to cross my radar before last night. What is it about? Apparently journalists at the Boston Globe, from what I’m reading, and I’m sure there are plenty of people who think it is a very good film, but am I going to drop $20 and an afternoon to see it? Probably not.

This period of cultural boredom isn’t just limited to film, unfortunately. I have spent the past three weeks totally consumed in covering ready-to-wear fashion for Pattern magazine. Earlier today, we finished up the shows in Milan, which should have been one of the most exciting weeks of the year. It wasn’t. If anything, it was anti-climactic at a level that I don’t remember having seen before. Worse yet, this has been a five-year trend that isn’t showing any sign of improving. An article in Business Insider this morning addresses the problem that such complete and total boredom with fashion is a leading cause of declining sales at department stores. Why shop when what we see on the rack is not substantially different from we already have in our closet?

Is music any different? Regrettably no, and music is the one place that our culture should be constantly reinventing itself. This year’s Grammy awards, which should be the biggest night in music, lost a half-million viewers from last year, which wasn’t exactly the most stellar statistic in the first place. With autotuning and digitally precise engineering, all new music has begun to sound too similar for anyone to care all that much about buying new albums. Scream all you want about how streaming services are cheating artists, what really matters is the fact that no one is buying the latest album because it sounds exactly like the one before it and the one before that and the one before … you get the idea.

What has happened to American culture? Where are the distinguishing artists that once shone out like beacons, names like Elvis, Hank Williams, Three Dog Night, or Ray Charles? Where are the icons of culture such as the Dorsey Brothers, Fred Astaire, Lucille Ball, and Norman Rockwell? Who is replacing Edward R. Murrow, Huntley & Brinkley, Bob Woodward, and Norman Mailer? Where are the underpinnings of our culture that give definition to this second decade of the 21st century? So far, all we have are hipster beards and oversized eyeglass frames and, quite honestly, both of those have lost their panache. We need more. We need something new to help define the next four years.

Why is our current culture not more significant? I have an interesting example. Tonight begins a new season of The Voice. Approximately 40 outstanding vocalists will be given a chance to work with experienced professionals, presumably to help get their music career jumpstarted. This is the tenth season of the show, which is a ratings hit for parent network NBC, but when we look at its actual impact on our culture, what have been the results: Nothing. Zero. Why? Because by the time the contest works its way down to the final four artists, the unique voices that started the show are gone. In their place are packaged, over-produced, tightly managed singers who are fed into a corporate music machine and promptly spit out on the other side having had little to no affect on our culture at all. Everyone sounds the same.

American Idol closed under exactly the same fate. While finalists from the first two seasons have done well, no one from this decade has managed to even get a glimpse of the Billboard charts. Nada. Zip.

Why was the literary world so wildly excited about what was ultimately a disappointing new book from Harper Lee, one which she had, presumptively, never wanted to be published? Because even contemporary literature is in the doldrums. We were wildly hopeful that a writer who had set culture on fire back in the 1960s might possibly be able to thrill us where more contemporary authors have failed.

Our culture has become far too boring. We, as creatives, have become too risk adverse, too unwilling to rock the boat, and the corporate entities that now control most everything we consume have choked the life from our movies, our music, our literature, and our life. We don’t need more Jackson Pollock, thank you. We need the next iteration of Pei Wei. We need people who can turn Banksy on its ear. We need people who give Giorgio Armani a reason to retire.

As I sit here ranting, of course, I have to ask myself what I’m willing to do to become part of the solution. I have some ideas. Who’s willing to help? Our culture is deficient of creativity. You and I can make a difference. Start now.

 

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PotD  /  Social Commentary
Partial Truths, Whole Lies
February 28, 2016
charles i. letbetter - partial truths, whole lies

Political language… is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. —George Orwell

 

charles i. letbetter - partial truths, whole lies

When all we see is a sliver of the truth, do we assume that everything else is a lie?

I’ve spent the better part of two hours this morning looking through headlines and newspapers and magazine articles. Through all of it, the lyrics to Don Henley’s 1989 hit, Heart of the Matter, keep running through my mind:

The more I know, the less I understand
All the things I thought I knew, I’m learning again
I’ve been tryin’ to get down to the Heart of the Matter
But my will gets weak
And my thoughts seem to scatter
But I think it’s about forgiveness

  Bonus points if you just sang that in your head as you read it.

For all the bulk of information available, I can’t help but have the feeling that I’m not getting the whole truth about anything. I know some articles, especially those shared on social media, are outright lies. Snopes helps weed out some of the most blantant attempts at deception, but their focus tends to lean toward simply outing the lies; they don’t necessarily bring us that much closer to the truth.

So, there’s a story this morning where the headline reads: Police: Virginia Officer Fataly Shot Day After Swearing In. My heart wants to break; the female officer had left the force for a few years, one would presume perhaps to start a family, and then returned. The story is tragic. Oh, but buried in the article is the fact that a “civilian,” also a woman, lost her life in the event as well. She may have been dead before police even arrived. Her name is not mentioned. The condition of the two other officers shot during the same altercation is not mentioned. A partial story, woefully incomplete. Tragedies on both counts, to be sure, but we don’t have the truth, which makes us susceptible to lies.

Anywhere there is a shadow of doubt, where there are questions not adequately answered, where the truth is not plainly evident, we are open to lies. People, and media, can tell us anything when there is an absence of known truth and even if the pieces to the story don’t fit well, there are always those inclined to believe, no matter how obvious the lie might be to those who stop and think a moment. This is why we have conspiracy theories, because in the absence of complete truth, our minds can imagine anything they want.

We can blame the Internet only in part. Granted, the fact that, once something happens, anywhere in the world, there is a rush to get information online, seems to inevitably lead to stories like the one above. When there is pressure to say something so that a media source does not appear out of the loop, even incomplete information seems to suffice. Yet, long before the Internet, there were shadows in the information we receive.

Don’t believe me? Tell me, who shot John F. Kennedy? The depths of the shadows surrounding that case cause us to question whether Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. Sure, that is the official account, but even in Congressional testimonies there were enough lies and attempts to obsfucate the facts that we have reason to doubt official sources. Minus a sense of the truth, we make up our own: the FBI was behind it, the CIA did it, there was a monkey with a pea shooter on the grassy knowel. Anything might be the truth when we don’t know what the truth is.

Partial truths are foundational in advertising. Would you still buy a product if you know that doing so directly contributed to the deforestation of the rain forests, or that the product had blown up in 57 of 58 lab tests? The only place where “truth in advertising” really starts to have any meaning is with prescription medicines. I know everyone has seen the ad where 20 of the 30 seconds is spent telling you all the possible, horrible, death-inducing side effects. Yet, somehow, for some reason, those ads still work. If the truth that a medicine may cause “premature anal leakage” doesn’t keep us from wanting the product, why doesn’t the truth work elsewhere?

Because sometimes we would rather just believe the lies. When the truth runs in opposition to what we want, we’re willing to compromise. If we want to see a conspiracy, we’ll find one, even if it is totally fictional. A perfect example of this is the anti-GMO crowd. Guess what: GMOs are not only not killing you, they’re probably saving your life. Without GMOs, global food prices would sky rocket, making everything unaffordable, even the most basic of grains. Hunger, which is already a significant issue, would more than triple. Some foods would simply cease to exist. Yet, because we thrive on drama and enjoy believing that “they” are out to get us, millions of people choose to believe the lies about genetically modified organisms, totally ignoring the truth.

I won’t even start on how politicians contribute to and thrive upon partial truths and whole lies. No matter what I say, no matter what anyone says, we make up our minds based on emotion, not fact. We vote for the candidate that makes us feel better, not the one who might actually help the country the most. For that matter, we dont’ really have a clue what would help the country the most. All we have are partial truths and whole lies.

And conspiracy theories.

Watch, the next tme you see someone post a statement on Facebook in hopes that, by doing so, Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates or Warren Buffect might give them money, see how many people buy into the lie, “just in case.” We know those stupid games are not true, but yet they spread like wildfire. We don’t want to believe the whole truth. We know the billionaires are rich and have a history of charitable giving, so we’re willing to take just that tiny sliver of partial truth as a basis for believing a wholesale lie.

The more I know, the less I understand.

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Current Issues  /  PotD
Saturday Morning Illiteracy
February 27, 2016
charles i. letbetter - saturday morning illiteracy

Educational legislation nowadays is largely in the hands of illiterate people, and the illiterate will take good care that their illiteracy is not made a reproach on them. —Katharine Elizabeth Fullerton Gerould

 

charles i. letbetter - Saturday morning illiteracy

Illiteracy is the one problem that doesn’t require an act of Congress to solve

I am very much aware that I am a person of privilege. Not only am I white and male, two factors in which I had no choice but still give me advantages that are, unfortunately, not yet available to everyone, but I also have a superpower that puts me ahead of roughly 87% of the U.S. population: I am proficiently literate. Not only can I read and write, but I can comprehend material intentionally written at a severe academic level. To that end, I am one of the most privileged people on the planet.

Growing up, I thought everyone knew how to read and write. Reading and grammar were emphasized heavily even before I started school. My mother, a teacher herself, made sure I started kindergarten already reading at a basic level, and this was in a day when preschools only existed in the largest of cities and were the domain of the elite. Right there, though, was my first advantage. By the time I was five years old, I was already reading better than 32,000,000 adults in the United States. If anything, the numbers were probably higher back in 1965 than they are now.

Illiteracy is one of those problems you may not ever consider if you are capable of reading what I write. Most days, for most articles, at least 60 percent of adults can read and comprehend what I write. I’ll admit, I am sometimes frustrated by having to re-write whole paragraphs to bring the readability rate into line; I want everyone to read at the same level at which I am most comfortable communicating. However,  one-third of the US population cannot read this paragraph.

Not being able to read and write at even a basic level is one of the most costly problems in America today, but yet you’re not likely to hear anything about illiteracy mentioned by the politicians running for office. How much does illiteracy cost? Here’s an infographic for those of you already tired of reading:

charles i. letbetter - saturday morning illiteracy

 

Like many of societies problems, illiteracy rates are worse among non-white populations. While a part of that is due to the challenge of immigrants even trying to learn our often complex and complicated language, the majority exists because reading is never encouraged. If one has not learned to read at a basic level by the time they are ten years old, the chances they will remain illiterate the rest of their lives is extremely high.

Pearson, the global publishing behemoth, produces much of the educational material in use around the world. They understand all too well the challenges of illiteracy. This week, they released a new video as part of the #ProjectLiteracy campaign. Produced by ad agency FCB Inferno, the claymation piece titled Alphabet of Illiteracy is a frighteningly clear representation of how illiteracy impacts our society. The campaign’s goal is to make sufficient strides in literacy so that by 2030 no child born is at risk of not being able to read and write.

I encourage you to not only watch the video below, but share it, and then consider how you can help combat illiteracy. Teach someone to read. Encourage someone who is struggling to read. Introduce someone to your local library. The options are many, the benefits are tremendous. There is no better way to spend a Saturday.

https://youtu.be/U0Ezto8HG_8

 

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pop culture  /  PotD
Reacting To Reactions
February 25, 2016
charles i. letbetter - reacting to reactions

If you make decisions based upon people’s reactions or judgments then you make really boring choices. —Heath Ledger

 

charles i. letbetter - Reacting to reactions

How we react to others reactions, especially on social media, reveals our character

Almost from the moment Facebook opened participation to everyone on the planet, there was a cry for a “dislike” button to counter the “like” button. After all, not everything people post needs to be liked. Let’s say a pet or a family member dies. We’re not really supposed to “like” that, are we? Yet, pleas for an unlike button have gone unheeded.

Yesterday, the world’s largest social media site introduced “reactions,” a group of emojis that gives one a greater range of options when responding to a post. Guess what: we still don’t have a “dislike” button. Instead, we have love, haha, wow, sad, and angry in addition to the overused like. To access the extra emojis, all one has to do is mouse over the like button on a desktop, or press and hold the like button on a mobile device.

Of course, this is going to cause problems, primarily because a) people don’t pay attention to what they’re doing on social media, and b) people are stupid. Put those  two together and relationship disasters are just waiting. Already, the folks at Mashable released a short list of “How to Use Facebook Reactions Without Pissing Everyone Off.” Unfortunately, their list is short, only five items, and that leaves a tremendous amount of room for error.

So, we would like to offer a slightly more complete list of when one should and shouldn’t use each of the new emojis. You may want to bookmark this page for later reference. Things could get dicey.

First, another look at those famous emojis:

charles i. letbetter - reacting to reactions

When to use “Like”

  • When a friend goes to dinner with their spouse
  • When a friend has a good day
  • When a friend posts a selfie that 147 other people have already liked
  • When a friend posts a recipe that looks good but you’ll probably never actually try
  • When your boss posts to the company profile praising your work

When NOT to use “Like”

  • When a friend goes to dinner with all their friends except you
  • When a friend has a bad day
  • When a friend posts a selfie with your spouse and you didn’t know they even knew each other
  • When your mom posts that one picture from second grade … you know the one.
  • When your boss posts that the company is closing and moving to Mexico

When to use “Love”

  • When a parent, sibling, child, or significant other posts a significant accomplishment
  • When your spouse or significant other posts something gooey and romantic
  • Any baby picture
  • Any picture of small animals playing
  • Pictures of your adult children moving out of the house

When NOT to use “Love”

  • Anytime your ex posts anything. ANYTHING. Not appropriate.
  • When your neighbor gets fined for playing their stupid music too loud at 1:00 AM
  • Any “shared” post that turns out to be a fundraising scam
  • When a politician dies, no matter how much you’re tempted
  • When that kid on whom your child has a crush moves to another city

When to use “Haha”

  • Every time I tell a joke
  • When thieves get what they deserve at the scene of the crime
  • When someone else’s kids do something unexpectedly hilarious
  • Any time cake and face meets
  • When your boss posts a cartoon and it’s not about you

When NOT to use “Haha”

  • When your ex tells a joke and it’s obviously about you
  • When someone gets hurt from doing something really stupid
  • When a politician opens their mouth, despite the temptation
  • When a friend posts something they think is funny but it’s really in bad taste
  • When a rival loses

When to use “Wow”

  • When your favorite team wins at the buzzer
  • Anytime a new world record is set
  • In the event SpaceX actually lands a rocket
  • Every time Niel Degrasse Tyson explains the universe
  • In the unlikely event a politician actually tells the truth

When NOT to use “Wow”

  • When your favorite team loses at the buzzer; not cool
  • Anytime weather rears its ugly head and kills people
  • Every time a politician says something unbelievably stupid (it gets redundant)
  • When someone posts something inappropriately personal
  • When a friend posts a 15-paragraph rant

When to use “Sad”

  • When someone has a death in the family
  • When a friend loses a job
  • When a friend gets dumped by someone they really loved
  • When someone is in an accident
  • Anytime someone posts bad news

When NOT to use “Sad”

  • When an ex or former crush gets married
  • Anytime something good happens to someone you don’t especially like
  • When someone posts a conspiracy theory
  • When someone goes all anti-science or denies obvious fact
  • When a friend’s mom post their bad picture from second grade

When to use “Angry”

  • In the face of obvious injustice
  • When someone hurts one of your family members
  • Anytime someone gets away with a crime
  • When models fail to show up or call
  • When friends are treated unfairly

When NOT to use “Angry”

  • Just because you’re not getting your way, you spoiled little brat
  • Every time someone says something with which you disagree
  • Every time a politician opens his/her mouth (again, redundant)
  • When someone disses you; take the high road
  • When someone tells a joke at your expense and you damn good and well it was funny

There’s going to be some inevitable chaos: Fingers slip and post an unintended reaction, or grandma doesn’t quite understand exactly what the “haha” emoji is. There’s going to be an adjustment period, so we should all be careful to not respond to accidental reactions.

Also, know that when you “love” something, you’re going to see more of it in your newsfeed. Facebook didn’t give you this new tool just to make someone happy.

These new reactions are really a big deal. Use them wisely and carefully, though. The last thing Facebook needs is emoji drama.

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Current Issues  /  PotD
How To Avoid Dying
February 24, 2016
charles i. letbetter - how to avoid dying

If I die a violent death, as some fear and a few are plotting, I know that the violence will be in the thought and the action of the assassins, not in my dying.—Indira Gandhi

 

charles i. letbetter - how to avoid dying

No one really wants to die, so maybe we should take more care in avoiding that outcome

I was amused when scrolling through my newsfeed this morning to see a brief article with the headline: University of Houston Offers Teachers Helpful Tips For How to Not Get Murdered. Odd, I didn’t realize murdering college professors had reached such epidemic proportions. Maybe it’s just a phenomenon particular to the University of Houston, or perhaps they recently hired Miss Marple in the English department and are anticipating the inevitable. Death does seem to follow that old lady and I’m rather sure dying is not in anyone’s syllabus.

Apparently, some faculty at the University are understandably concerned about a new Texas law that allows students to carry concealed weapons in their classrooms. Among the advice given were the following “bullet” points (extra credit for the irony):

  • Be careful discussing sensitive topics
  • Drop certain topics from your curriculum
  • Not “go there” if you sense anger
  • Limit student access off hours

Now, I’m not sure exactly what “sensitive” topics might be included nor where it is one should not go if sensing anger, but I’m going to guess they might include subjects such as how incredibly stupid it is to allow guns in the classroom in the first place and the simple fact that anyone caught shooting the instructor automatically fails the course. Seriously, if this is the type of instruction we have to give the teaching staff, I’m questioning the overall quality of education one might receive at the University of Houston.

However, dying is genuinely something most of us want to avoid and, it would seem, more than a few people have difficulty with the task given that several thousand will die today, and another big bunch of people will be dying tomorrow, and the day after, and the next, and etc. So, with all sensitivity to the delicateness of such an issue set to the side and filed in the back of a drawer in an unmarked manila envelope, I would like to offer some common sense suggestions for ways in which one might avoid dying. University of Houston teachers please take notes.

  • Avoid interaction with items such as bullets, knives, machetes, bombs, or other objects that might pierce one’s body in a fashion that leads to dying. Note: we’re not talking about the fashionable body modifications to your ears, nose, nipples, or other places your mother doesn’t know about. This strictly applies to those piercings that might do things like remove one’s head, severely displace one’s internal organs, or put oversized holes through vital body parts. Dying may very well be immediate should one encounter such piercings and should be avoided at all costs.
  • If you live in a trailer park during a tornado, move. Growing up in Oklahoma, this was just a given. No one who had any choice lived in or even near a trailer park from March through September. In fact, the rest of the year isn’t necessarily all that safe, either. Apparently not everyone gets handed that memo, though. At least three people died in tornadoes yesterday in Louisiana and Mississippi. All three were in trailer parks. This didn’t have to happen. How does one know if there’s a danger of a tornado hitting their trailer park? There’s an easy test: is it raining? If so, move. Dying by being sucked up into a swirling cloud and then dropped just doesn’t sound painless.
  • Avoid visiting places where dying seems to be a recreational activity. This includes places such as Syria, Iran, the Sudan, or South Chicago. These are places where they serve guns along with the appetizers, neighbors lob bombs at each other just for the literal hell of it, and if the bombs and bullets don’t get you the water will. Odds of surviving in these places is so low you’d have a better chance of getting a presidential candidate to convert to Islam. Stay away.
  • Excessive anything is never good, and dying from excess tends to make one the target of bullying in the afterlife, or so I’m told. These are things you already know intellectually. Eating too much will kill you. Exercising too much will kill you. Mouthing off too much to your wife will kill you. One doesn’t really need to be told such things, but yet, every day, there are hundreds of people who die because they just had to have that one last piece of pie, or the last donut, or run 47 miles. Dying can come in many different forms. Be careful. Use some common sense. Step away.
  • Stop smoking cigarettes. Again, you know this. You knew this when you started the dirty habit. Chances are, you ‘ve even told others not to start, and you’re always trying to quit. Stop trying. Do it. Put the damn things down. If your oral fixation is that strong, roll some bud. Having long conversations with the cat won’t kill you (though it may drive the cat nuts). Cigarettes and dying are buddies. Just stop.
  • Consider a career other than suicide bomber. I’m sure I’m not the only one who questions the mental capacity of people who leave nice, warm, presumptively loving homes in order to join the so-called caliphate. I have one question for anyone considering such a move: ARE YOU FUCKING CRAZY? Dying is all they do in the caliphate; they rather seem to enjoy it. Apparently, someone told these incredibly gullible people that there’s a reward for going boom. WRONG! There is no reward! There are only little tiny pieces of you scattered all over the sand. That’s it. No endless supply of Snickers bars or anything else you might have been told. If one is trying to avoid death, this is the worst line of business to consider.
  • One last piece of advice: wherever you are, whatever you are doing, whoever you may be, absolutely, under no condition, should you ever, EVER piss off a United States Marine. Don’t even think about it. Just say “Yes sir (or ma’am),” do as instructed, and go on about your business.

Not having died recently, that I recall, I can’t speak from experience, but the lack of folks recovering from such incidents leads me to conclude that dying is not a great deal of fun. In case you haven’t noticed, we generally cry when people die because they’re not coming back. So, let’s all do our best to avoid dying. I know the Bible says, “… it is appointed unto man once to die … (Hebrews 9:27),” but that doesn’t mean you have to do so today. Be careful out there. We like it so much better when you’re around to annoy, er, visit with us.

Take care.

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Current Issues  /  PotD
Say Something Nice
February 23, 2016
charles i. letbetter - say something nice

I don’t enjoy any kind of danger or volatility. I don’t have that kind of ‘I love the bad guys’ thing. No, no thank you. I like nice people.—Tina Fey

 

charles i. letbetter - say something nice

We have become a mean, vicious, and cruel race of people because there is no one to stop us

Finding nice things to say can sometimes be very difficult. Yesterday, for example, one presidential candidate said he wanted to punch a protester. News the past few days has been littered with claims of one person disparaging another, someone shooting someone else because they said the wrong thing, and people who are supposed to be leaders outright lying about facts that are easily checked.

Social media is even worse. Descriptors such as, “idiot,” “slut,” and “jackass” are commonplace as people respond to topics with which they disagree. Do the people speaking actually know the ones they’re insulting? No, of course not. One thing social media is very good at doing is encouraging us to participate in discussions about which we know very little. In fact, the success of apps such as Twitter and Reddit depend on us not being able to keep our mouths shut when silence would certainly be the better tact.

Fashion isn’t any better. I am trying this season to avoid reviewing shows that I dislike. I’m fortunate to have a choice in which shows I cover and I see no point in putting myself, the designer, nor Pattern’s readers through the agony of discussing something I don’t like. Not everyone is so fortunate, however. Between shows, I frequently listen to the panels assembled at SHOWStudio. Participants are tasked with talking about a designer’s collection not only for the duration of the show (which I ignore) but for at least 30 minutes afterward. When a presentation is good, finding something to talk about for that length of time can be excruciatingly difficult. Inevitably, the talk turns negative, and at times even vicious.

We have become a society of mean speakers. The ancient advice of, “If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all,” is lost on us. Instead, we embrace what we consider the “right” to say anything we want, anytime, anywhere, and we think we should be able to do so without any consequence. Should anyone challenge our comments in the slightest, we fire back with some claim of “free speech.” Never mind that what we say may be hurting someone else. We don’t care. We have a right to open our mouths and let filth and disgust spill from them, so that is exactly what we do.

Body shaming has become a global pastime and photographers and photo editors are among the worst, not only in how we talk about models, but how we rate photographs based on the physical qualities of the model. I can shoot two different models in the same location and the same time of day wearing the same garment and exactly the same settings, but the photo of the thinner model is inevitably rated higher than that of the more curvy model, even when both are smaller than a size 6. One of the reasons I rarely participate in photographer’s forums online is because there are too many who have absolutely nothing civil to say about anyone.

Even church isn’t safe. When the Pope and a politician exchange insults, what kind of example does that set? Pulpits have become dispensaries of hate and aggression rather than sanctuaries of peace and love.

As a result, we are becoming increasingly violent and intolerant of one another. The recent murder spree by an Uber driver in Michigan wasn’t a random act so much as it was the physical manifestation of anger and resentment building up in all of us. This guy wasn’t crazy. He’s every bit like you and me, angry at society and the world. The difference is that he took his actions too far, going beyond words and deciding to use bullets the same way he might otherwise have randomly left mean and inappropriate comments on some website. We shudder at the horror of what he did, but are the rest of us really all that far removed from doing exactly the same thing?

What we say matters. Words do hurt, and the example we set with our words has the ability to destory our entire civilization. We cannot coexist in a situation where we have lot the ability to say anything nice about each other. When our first response is one of sarcasm, belittling, and finding the worst even in other’s good intentions, we pick away at the threads that hold our society together.

I’m guilty. You’re guilty. We have to do better. We have to find more ways to be nice to each other. We’ve been mean and self-centered for so very long, that being nice is going to take considerable effort. Turning around what have become instinctual responses is going to take time. Even more, we need to stop accepting such meanness from others, especially those in positions of authority and those campaigning for those positions. When someone decides to be mean toward another, we need to walk away, withdraw any evidence of support, and go elsewhere.

Being nice isn’t all that difficult. We can be truthful without being mean. We can disagree without being insulting. Our words are killing us. All of us. Say something nice, will you?

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Advertising  /  Fashion  /  PotD
Sexy Is Still What Sells
February 22, 2016
charles i. letbetter - sexy isn't always enough

I don’t know what a world would be like if you do away with sexy images.—Christie Hefner

 

charles i. letbetter - sexy isn't always enough

The advertising mantra has always been “sex sells, ” but today’s market may change how sexy is defined

 

When one spends two months or more out of every year, as I do, watching fashion show after fashion show after fashion show, one can become a little jaded. What might have been considered innovative and attractive at the beginning of the season starts to look boring and over-used by the point we’ve seen it 87 times. We see certain designers try to define, or re-define, what is going to be the look for the next season and sometimes what they might send down the runway intending to be sexy completely changes how we look at women’s apparel. Other times, however, the whole concept fails, miserably. Even the best of designers have off seasons. Getting sexy right can be challenging

“Sex sells,” has been an advertising commandment longer than I’ve been alive and nowhere has that been more true than with lingerie brand Victoria’s Secret. The company has not only dominated the lingerie market, currently holding a 61.8% share, but they’ve successfully changed the entire course of the conversation regarding women’s underwear. Through the 1980s and 90s especially, they defined sexy with lace and silk, a heavy dose of tease, and an out-of-season runway show that is the thing of fantasies for both men and women. All that, however, may be changing.

Anyone paying attention last week was caught off guard when Victoria’s Secret CEO, Sharen Jester Turney, the woman largely responsible for making the brand the powerhouse that it is, resigned without warning. Her reasons were, “to prioritize my family and my personal life and consider what’s next for me professionally,” she said.  Yet, the timing is interesting. The brand just finished its strongest quarter ever. What might Ms. Turney see on the horizon to make her think this is a good time to take a few days off?

Mallory Schlossberg thinks Ms. Turney might not like what she sees coming in the future. In an article for Business Insider this morning, Ms. Schlossberg considers all the social changes taking place that could very well challenge the VS approach to what is sexy. After all, attitudes are changing. Look at the covers of this month’s Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition and on one we see a very fit but definitely not size two Ronda Rousey, while on another we find the very curvy Ashley Graham who is more along the line of size 14-16. Younger women especially are less likely to respond to overly airbrushed and manipulated images of women that are not real. What was considered sexy for previous generations of women isn’t working for Millenials or the Generation Z that is following them. Could this mean that Victoria’s Secret and brands like them, who have largely built their empires on being sexy, are going to have to change their tunes?

Maybe, or maybe not. For all the fret and worry and endless discussion over what Millenials and “Gen Z” shoppers may or may not buy, the fact is we’re just now starting to see the leading edge of their purchasing power. While that power is going to continue to grow, so, too, does their income. What we’ve not yet explored is the degree to which their shopping habits might change as they get older and reach a more mature income status. Granted, their shopping habits as young people are different from their parents, but they’ve yet to achieve the same income level as their parents. They don’t yet have the same level of expendable cash, so it seems natural that they’re a little more conservative with how they spend.

By contrast, let’s look at the fashion styles we’ve seen coming down the runway the past two weeks. Sheer is now everywhere, despite the fact that we’re looking at fall/winter collections. Backs are more likely to be open and necklines are likely to plunge well below the navel. Slits up the side of skirts frequently go all the way to the hip. While layering is still popular and often results in very bulky, shapeless silhouettes, even there, designers have found ways to show a bit of cleavage or flirt with the sight of bare thigh. Sexy is still a very strong look and we’ve yet to get to the notoriously skin-tight styles of Milan and Paris.

Each generation puts their own twist on what is sexy, to be sure, but whatever direction that twist takes, the fact remains that sex still sells. So maybe Victoria’s Secret has to widen the sizes of lingerie they’ve traditionally offered, and maybe they use a little less airbrush in their ads. I don’t imagine women’s appetite for things that are sexy to go away anytime soon. If anything, as the definition of sexy expands, it gives advertisers even more options for reaching out to a new generation of shoppers.

Sexy as your mother defined it may not always be enough, but it is still the dominant force in selling clothes. Sex still sells. A lot.

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PotD  /  Social Commentary
Time Ticks Too Loudly
February 21, 2016
charles i. letbetter - time ticks far too loudly

A poor life this if, full of care, we have no time to stand and stare.—W. H. Davies

 

charles i. letbetter - time ticks too loudly

Time is a measure we use to punish ourselves with the reminder that we can never have enough of it

I have a new wrist watch. I’ve not worn one in well over ten years. In fact, I can’t honestly say I remember the last time I wore a wrist watch; the batteries tend to not last too long and I rarely have time to stop by a jeweler to have the battery replaced. Watch bands also seem to be problematic for me. But, this watch was only a dollar, a promotional item actually, so how could I refuse something that cost less than a cup of bad coffee?

Most watches today are smooth, digitally driven timepieces, but this one is old-fashioned gears and springs with a contemporary face. I don’t expect it to last too long. Mostly, I forget it’s on my wrist until the face gets caught on my shirt sleeve. The watch is about as simple a timepiece as one might find.

But early this morning, in the darkness before my alarm went off reminding me there was a fashion show which would ultimately end up being disappointing, I noticed something about my watch which may ultimately be disturbing: it ticks loudly. Tick. Tick. Tick. No tock, mind you, because the tock response to the tick only occurs in devices driven by a pendulum; it is the return of the pendulum that creates the sound. Spring-wound watches just tick, tick, tick, and in the middle of the night this watch was annoyingly loud.

My mind immediately thinks of that chorus from the Steve Miller Band’s Fly Like An Eagle:

Time keeps on slippin’, slippin’, slippin’
Into the future
Time keeps on slippin’, slippin’, slippin’
Into the future

Over and over and over that phrase repeats with all the annoyance of the ticking on my watch. Time. Ticking. Slipping. What am I doing in bed? Why do we have to sleep? I should be up, awake, living.

We were in the car yesterday with the TED Radio Hour playing on NPR, half-listening, half-daydreaming as Keith Chen talked about how our language affects our ability to save money.  Specifically, people whose language does not contain the future tense tend to save better than those who do use the future tense. That part is interesting enough, but toward the end of the talk Chen says that not only does the absence of future tense correlate to higher savings, but better health, better eating habits, less likely to smoke, and more likely to practice safe sex. All of this hinging on how our language leads us to understand the future, and in a broader sense, time itself. Extrapolating those findings out to the extreme, we might conclude that how we understand time, the perspective our language gives us on time, may lead us to behaviors that affect just how much time we have. Future tense kills.

Tick. Tick. Tick. Loudly. Far too loudly.

In the quiet of the night, every sound is exaggerated, of course, and so is our reasoning. Acting on thoughts one has at 1:00 in the morning is rarely a good move. A cup of coffee, perhaps some bacon and eggs, a moment to give those thoughts a second examination, might prevent one from doing something they would later regret. The ticking of my watch doesn’t change volume levels between 1:00 AM and 7:00 AM, but my perception of that ticking, and my perspective of time, does change. I’m less disturbed by either once I’m up and active and waiting for the next fashion show. I worry less about running out of time in my life, and more about being on time for the next runway.

Still, I wish I had more time; more time when my brain is active and not feeling sluggish from the morning’s work. Getting up so early often means that by the time my schedule opens up around 1:00 PM, either my brain or my body is exhausted. I want to keep going, to edit more, to write a couple more articles, or perhaps read a bit, but rarely is there enough energy for that to happen and I end up feeling that I’ve wasted time napping. Just imagine what I could have gotten done had I stayed awake!

With each birthday, time ticks a bit louder, reminding me that I have less of it now than I did 12 months ago, and raising the question of how I will use the time I have left. We’ve all heard the platitude about living each day as if it were your last. That doesn’t work, though. What we do today affects tomorrow, and for the greater majority of us there will be a tomorrow. We can’t live as if there are no consequences for our actions. The fact that we might die tomorrow does not excuse our lack of responsibility today.

Tick. Tick. Tick. Time for me to wrap this up. Another fashion show starts soon. If you’ve not been reading the reviews on Pattern, I’m disappointed in you. Those take a lot of my time, and I only have so much of that to give.

Tick. Tick. Tick. Louder and louder.

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Photography  /  PotD
Too Early For Intelligent Thought
February 20, 2016
charles i. letbetter, too early for intelligent thought

The early bird gets the worm. The early worm… gets eaten.—Norman Ralph Augustine

 

charles i. letbetter - too early for intelligent thought

Technology has improved a lot since this picture was taken. Early mornings, however, are still the same

 

Even by London standards, I am up way too early. You see, it’s not enough that we cover all the important fashion shows, I still have to keep up with my standard shooting schedule and this morning that includes doing some long exposure photography downtown. In order to pull off the look required, we need to be standing in the middle of the street by 5:00 AM. In order to be standing in the middle of the street by 5, I had to wake everyone up at 2. Being able to make coffee with my eyes still half shut is a very good thing.

Getting up early isn’t all that difficult for me on most mornings. I rather like London time, sort of. Our British friends tend to get things started around 9:00, which equates to 4:00 in Indianapolis. So, that’s typically the time I’m up and running. But we’re even beating that schedule today. As I type, Kat is doing hair and makeup on a lovely young model who is trying her best to be awake. My composition time is slow as I type a few words then have to reach for more coffee. More coffee. Always, more coffee.

Of course, you won’t be reading this until much later, will you? No, you have better sense than to be getting up this early. You’re almost certainly still lying in bed, totally oblivious to the fact that in order for your world to be ready for you at whatever time you decide to put your feet on the floor, someone else had to get up before you and prepare that Starbucks that you grab every morning, or the muffin that you eat while driving to work. You’re smart, letting someone else do the work like that.

I think of those poor chaps at the BBC who have to prepare the morning report, or the writers for Business Insider who have to not only write, but do research to be able to concatenate the most important news into a list of things I need to know before I start shooting off my big mouth. Of course, this is a Saturday, so there are no such lists. Not quite as many people are up at this unholy hour, which is why it is the perfect time for us to be taking pictures in the middle of the street.

The biggest danger in getting up so damned early is that the brain hasn’t had enough rest and recuperation time. I’m running on all of two hours sleep today. Yesterday, I splurged and had three hours. Some days I’m lucky and get a nap during the afternoon, but that won’t likely happen today as, being Saturday, there are children at home. All day. They don’t stop unless you’re throwing food at them, and even then it seems as though they just barely slow down. How can I be expected to exercise the level of intelligence of which I am capable if my brain is still half asleep?

Speaking of children, they seem to do early better than anyone. They hit the floor running the moment their little eyes pop open, especially on Saturdays when we would dearly like them to sleep a little later than 5:30. I’m convinced that they are able to get up so quickly and easily because their little brains are not yet full of enough information slowing their boot up every morning. They don’t care too much about the Chinese stock exchange, couldn’t care less what the price of oil is, and neither of the slackers are planning on voting, given they’re only 5 and 7. They care a little about the weather since that determines whether they can play outside. They care about what’s for breakfast and whether they can stream some mind-numbing drivel via Netflix. Their little brains boot up in .002 seconds because their operating system isn’t yet weighted down with garbage.

I remember my own father getting up this early, much to my mother’s frustration. He always said he enjoyed the peace and quiet and I can certainly appreciate that. The difference between he and I is that I can get up without disturbing anyone else in the house. Poppa had some difficulty with that quiet thing. Mother accused him of being too much like a bull in a china shop. By the time he finished making coffee, the rest of us had at least stirred.

If we are all very lucky, and it will take no small amount of good fortune, I will be able to share the results of today’s adventures with you. I expect you to feign appreciation if we do. After all, we’ve gone to all the trouble of getting up way too damn early in the morning; too early to be doing hair & makeup, too early to be having intelligent conversation, and too early to be taking pictures.

But here we are, the early birds. Those worms better be tasty.

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PotD  /  Social Commentary
Food That Isn’t Fast
February 19, 2016
charles i. letbetter - food that isn't fast

So long as you have food in your mouth, you have solved all questions for the time being.—Franz Kafka

 

charles i. letbetter - food that isn't fast

Our relationship with food is too extensive to let it pass without a thought

There are times when reading my email can be a dangerous thing. Consider, for example, the promotional piece for a local restaurant offering all-you-can-eat fried catfish today for only $5.09. Yes, you’re reading that correctly. All-you-can-eat for under ten bucks. I am really tempted to go, and there’s still yet the chance that I may. The challenge is I have to walk. Both directions. Three miles each way.

In some aspects, that long of a walk is a good thing. I can use the exercise anyway and the temperatures today are supposed to be warmer so the weather isn’t the hindrance it has been. Walking there builds up a decent appetite and if I’m going to spend five bucks on food I want to get my money’s worth. Walking back helps, at least in part, make up for the fact that I would almost certainly eat more than I should because that’s what tends to happen when one is told the meal is all-you-can-eat.

The problem with that long of a walk is that once I leave the restaurant there are no restrooms available between here and there. Walking after a meal does a wonderful job of aiding in digestion, but when one has overeaten, and especially when what one overate was fried, the need for a restroom is likely to arrive rather quickly. Walking that distance takes me about an hour. There is almost no scenario in which the last 30 minutes of that walk isn’t painful. I’ve done things like this before. Disaster has been oh so narrowly averted on more than one such occasion. Do I really dare take that risk today?

We all know that the food we eat is important. There are plenty of people who want to know every little detail about their food: where it was sourced, how it was grown, what it was fed, whether it had a good life and was happy when it was harvested. There are millions of people who have medical reasons to watch what they consume. The young woman on the right in the pictures above is either allergic or sensitive a large number of the most common foods. Her food requirements are so narrow that she’s had to create her own set of recipes so she can still enjoy eating without getting ill. Her website, bubblechild.com, is a fantastic resource for anyone who deals with a myriad of sometimes conflicting food allergies. I read through her articles and often feel rather ashamed of myself for not eating better.

I’m not alone, though. Americans have been the fattest people on the planet for some time now, and our relationship with food extends beyond a mere matter of sustenance; it affects who we are, how we relate to other people, and how well we do our jobs. There is a recent article in the New York Times wherein Charles Schwab CEO Walt Bettinger talks about how he invites job applicants to breakfast and has the restaurant intentionally mess up their order. He tells reporter Adam Bryant:

“I do that because I want to see how the person responds.That will help me understand how they deal with adversity. Are they upset, are they frustrated or are they understanding? Life is like that, and business is like that. It’s just another way to get a look inside their heart rather than their head.”

Bettinger doesn’t say whether he counts the applicant’s cholesterol or sugar intake at that meal, but he has a point. What we want to eat can affect our temperament and getting an order wrong isn’t the worst thing that can happen in a restaurant.

I can remember occasionally going to restaurants with my parents when I was small. Back then, few, if any, items on the menu were prepared in advance. One reason we seldom ate out was because there would inevitably be a twenty- to thirty-minute wait between the time we placed our order and food actually arrived. Salads were encouraged not because they were healthy (they weren’t by the time we ladled several ounces of dressing on them), but because they gave us something to do while waiting on our entrees. If salads weren’t available, my parents were challenged with trying to keep two young boys occupied. We were forbidden from ordering anything that might extend our wait, such as fried chicken. The fact that the food was not going to be fast forced us to think carefully not only about what we wanted to eat, but where we sat, how we dressed, and whether we invited guests.

Food is serious. When I’m planning our menus here at home I have to take into consideration matters such as the amount of fruit the kids have had that day, are they getting enough vegetables, are the textures so challenging that they override the taste? If I get it wrong, we not only have cranky little people on our hands, but I’m also impacting their future relationship with that particular food. They’re both at an age where their opinions of food now affect their dietary choices for most their adolescence. For the moment, they love steamed veggies, but if I don’t prepare those carefully they’ll stop eating them and won’t try them again for several years. Remember, I have three that are grown. We’ve been through this before.

Taking time to think about our food before we eat brings us closer to making healthier choices. After all this, will I still have the catfish? Maybe, but if I do I am less likely to go full-tilt on the all-you-can-eat and will adjust my other meals to compensate for any errors in judgement I may make. Not giving in to the fast food convenience allows all of us to enjoy our food more, to make meals more of an experience rather than an automatic habit. We may not always make the most healthy choices, but we are less likely to make really horrible ones.

You know, I could use the exercise. Maybe I’ll just have the veggie tray instead.

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Current Issues  /  PotD
Words You Don’t Own
February 18, 2016
charles i. letbetter - words you don't own

Better than a thousand hollow words, is one word that brings peace.—Buddha

 

charles i. letbetter - words you don't own

Once words leave your mouth, or your fingers, the matter of who owns them becomes questionable and often it isn’t you.

I was amused recently when the driver of a car that was passing us could be seen gesturing rather vehemently while she talked, neither hand actually on the steering wheel as she passed. She was deep in conversation and obviously very passionate about the topic. While the visual observance was humorous, I was also just a bit concerned that neither of her hands were on the wheel as she zipped down the rather crowded street. The whole thing made me curious as to what she might be discussing, but that’s none of my business, right?

There is audio going viral of a certain well-known rapper who recently appeared on the television program Saturday Night Live. The rapper, whose ego is matched only by his narcissism, can be heard claiming that he is fifty percent more influential than any other person and then instructing those within immediate hearing distance, “don’t fuck with me!” Here’s the thing: the rapper was not in public space at the time the words were spoken. He was behind a closed door with his team. He did not know he was being recorded, but not the rantings of this petulant child are scattered across the Internet. There’s no getting them back. You can hear the audio here.

We tend to not give a great deal of thought to how important our words might be, and we almost never give any consideration to who owns the conversations we have, whether face to face or online. When texting your significant other that they need to purchase milk on their way home, one typically doesn’t consider that message profound enough to warrant any type of legal protection. The words are just out there, no big deal.

Consider, however, that one is a songwriter or a scriptwriter swapping ideas with a writing partner. Concepts and phrases jump back and forth between the two, and then, months later, one discovers that the other has used pieces of that conversation in a script or a song without crediting the partner. The next text is likely to be to a lawyer. However, one might ask why one set of words is protected more than the other.

This isn’t a new conversation, actually. I remember while I was still in college, 40 or 50 eons ago, there being a significant lawsuit over who owned letters in a correspondence between a now-famous author and a friend. Both subjects were deceased and the author’s family wanted the letters back because they contained information regarding the influences and inspirations and state of mind the author had while writing different books. The family of the friend did not want to let them go, however, claiming that once the author had mailed the letters they were no longer his (which is standard case law).

So, when you open your mouth or send a message to a friend, regardless of the medium, who owns that information and who has a right to access that information, especially if you’re not around to access it yourself.?

That question is at the core of the FBI’s request, and subsequent court order, for Apple to create software that would undo the encryption on the phone used by one of the shooters in a terrorist act last December. The stance taken by Apple, and vehemently argued by CEO Tim Cook, is that you own the words you type, and the communication you engage through your phone. To that end, Apple has natively encrypted everything on their iPhone with a level of security that even Apple itself cannot hack.

However, laws allow that any communication made in relation to or during the commission of a crime can be used to prosecute those who committed that crime and, especially in the case of what would be considered terrorist activities, to prevent additional crimes from being committed. Therefore, the FBI, with the court’s backing, they have a right to access the information on that phone.

Remember that line in the list of Miranda rights that says, “You have the right to remain silent. If you choose to not remain silent, anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.” All of your words, any of your words, can be used against you. If your words can be used against you, do you still own them?

At the same time, those seemingly innocent conversations can save one a lot of trouble. Let’s go back to that text about buying milk on the way home. That text is essentially creating an alibi for where your significant other goes between work and home. Should a crime be committed in the same area about the same time, that text could potentially help exonerate your partner, but only if you share it. One has to let go of the strict possession of that message.

Even words that we copyright, such as those I’m typing now, we don’t fully own. Copyright law allows for “acceptable use” by third parties, use that does not require my permission. My words can end up used in ways I did not intend and cannot control. In fact, I might never know the extent to which my words are being used out of context.

Here’s the frightening fact: one words leave your brain, regardless of medium, you lose control of those words, where they go, how they are used, and whom they influence. Privacy, as much as we may value it, is an illusion. And words we don’t control can get us into trouble.

Last example: I may tell Kat that I am shooting two people this evening. She understands those words to mean that I’m taking pictures later today. She goes to the salon, then, and casually mentions to one of her co-workers that I am shooting two people this evening. A guest who doesn’t know me becomes alarmed and notifies police. Why? I am shooting two people this evening. Doesn’t that sound like something the police needs to know?

My words, but I don’t own them.

Maybe, just maybe, we should give a bit more thought to our words before we allow them to escape our grasp.

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Photography  /  PotD
I Can’t Show You That
February 17, 2016
charles i. letbetter - I can't show you taht

You have to show violence the way it is. If you don’t show it realistically, then that’s immoral and harmful. If you don’t upset people, then that’s obscenity.—Roman Polanski

 

charles i. letbetter - I can't show you that

The biggest problem with censorship of any kind is that it gives someone else the power to determine your morality

In a small town about 40 miles East of Indianapolis resides a woman who is convinced that everything I do is pornography. I don’t know this person at all. We’ve never met. Yet, because she doesn’t like what I do, she is of the opinion that no one else should, either, and has made lives miserable for people who disagree with her. I’ve actually not heard anything from her in a while, but I’m sure she’s still there.

Why do I care? What she’s doing doesn’t hurt me, personally. I’m okay with what I do, obviously. My friends are okay with what I do. Most importantly, the people who care about me the most, and whom I care about, consider my work quite fantastic and wonderful. Okay, so they’re a bit biased. Still, if there are people who like my work, why be bothered with those who don’t?

Because those who are like this woman enjoy imposing their morality on everyone else. We’ve seen it in every issue: women’s rights, welfare, voting rights, abortion, gay rights, healthcare, and marriage rights. There are always those people who not only are sure they know better than the rest of us, they insist they should have the power to stop us.

Now would be the point at which my closest friends ask what has me on my censorship soapbox so early this morning. The answer is an article in Business Insider about a UK initiative to force websites hosting pornography to verify user’s ages. I know, it doesn’t sound like such a harmful idea at all. In fact, pornography’s most popular website, PornHub, actually supports the measure, which I found, at the very least, interesting (in reality, I think they’re hoping it will filter out some of the competition). Protect the dear children and all that bunk, right?

I have two significant problems with what the UK is proposing.

First is the matter of who gets to decide what is pornography? No one has yet created a definition that stands up to legal scrutiny, for there are always artistic exceptions that would be deemed protected means of expression. Exactly what constitutes pornography? If sites that show belly buttons is pornography, then swimwear and fitness websites are pornographers. If sites that show nipples are pornography, then practically every major fashion magazine is guilty and one would have to be 18 to view the stream of a fashion show. If sites that detail reproductive processes are pornography, then medical and healthcare sites need to be taken down.

The article also raises the fact that elements of porn can be found just about everywhere, despite user guidelines prohibiting such. Porn can be found on Twitter. So, does everyone need to verify their age when they log onto the social media site? Porn can easily be found on Tumblr. Some of the things they show there even frighten me. But if one doesn’t follow those accounts, one doesn’t see that material, do Tumblr users need to show proof of age?

Underlying all those questions is the central fact that censorship allows someone else to determine your moral code. You may not agree with their moral code, but they insist that you abide by it. This philosophy is the kind embraced by narcissists and despots alike. They insist that they are always right and you are always wrong, therefore, they must tell you what to do. They would tell you what to eat (consider the GMO vs. non-GMO debates), what clothes to wear (school uniforms, anyone?), what church or synagogue to attend (everyone’s religion is wrong except mine), and even what vehicle to drive (those using fossil fuels are bad). People in power who embrace such a philosophy would soon enslave everyone in order to enforce compliance to their way of thinking. Most all the terrorist activity we see  today is the result of exactly this type of thinking.

Second, to censor sexual acts, most of which are natural, beautiful, and necessary for the species to prosper, while not censoring violence, which is not natural, not beautiful, and would bring an end to the species, is the height of hypocrisy. If one is so terribly concerned about what children are watching, then why can any child turn on Netflix and watch Kill Bill, or Pulp Fiction, or any of hundreds of grotesquely violent films. Are you really going to try and convince me, with absolutely no scientific evidence in support of your insanity, that allowing a child to watch realistic violence is less harmful than seeing a nipple like the one that gave him/her sustenance when they were infants?

I’m not going to take the time to show all the studies that detail the dangers of viewing violence in media. I just don’t have the time and you’d grow bored at the length of the list. We have known for decades that violence, not sex, is the greatest threat to children, but we refuse to do anything to stop movies, or television shows, or anything else that feels it is somehow more truthful to show violence than censor it.

I would agree that there are some things children shouldn’t see. However, the way to handle that is through responsible parenting, not censorship. Filtering software is available for every Internet-connected device made. If you have children and allow them to use such a device, the responsibility is that of their parents, and only their parents, to lock down that content, and not only control what  they see at any given age, but also how much time they spend on those devices. Studies now show connections between the amount of time a child spends online and an increase in attention deficit disorders. Even the most sanguine of programming can be dangerous in high quantities. Parents, not the government, not the UN, and certainly not any other organization, should control what their child sees and to which media and messages they are exposed.

Even well-intended censorship is still an imposition of one’s moral code over another, it is an indirect attempt to control behavior, which ultimately leads to tyranny and slavery. I don’t think we really want to go down that road. At least, I don’t. You make your own choice.

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Hashtag Philosophy  /  Music  /  PotD
#IfICouldFixMusic
February 16, 2016

If my mind’s not trying to fix something or create something, I don’t know what to do. It just throws me off.—will.i.am

 

charles i. letbetter - #IfICouldFixMusic

If we are going to fix music, perhaps the first step comes in understanding music better ourselves

As predicted, I totally missed on my Grammy predictions. I’ll look at the exact damage later, but I mentioned when making those predictions that Taylor Swift would likely win where she was nominated, and she did. Congratulations to her.

Of course, not everyone is happy with the outcome, as is normal; there are always differences of opinion and taste. What I found interesting this morning, though, is that the hashtag #IfICouldFixMusic is trending, apparently a product of the Comedy Central show, @Midnight.  I thought the topic might be interesting, so I read through some of the most recent tweets.

The list of comments was the typical mix of, “I wouldn’t change anything” and “no more of the stuff I don’t like.” Some of them were funny, most were not, and a few were almost insightful. Are there issues within the music industry? Sure, there always has been. 40 years ago it was the labels ripping off artists, now it’s the streaming services (allegedly). Anywhere there is money being exchanged for talent, problems are going to be part of the equation. Everyone has music they like, genres they don’t like, and most everyone I know has fairly diverse taste. But then, most the people I know are already cool, so that’s to be expected.

It seems to me that #IfICouldFixMusic is best divided into two categories: fantasy and practical. The fantasy side is fun to think about, but you know is never going to really happen. That list would look something like this:

#IfICouldFixMusic

  • Only people with real talent would become famous
  • Concert tickets wouldn’t require taking out a third mortgage
  • I’d be able to find all the old vinyl I had as a teen and it would still be in good condition
  • Cars would not be allowed to have woofers bigger than the engine block
  • Legends wouldn’t die at age 27.
  • Everyone would be born with their own soundtrack, and together they would intermingle to create the world’s greatest symphonies.

I know I’m not going to get any of the things in that list, though. Life doesn’t have an alternative fantasy setting. So, if we really want to change music, we have to look at some of the more practical solutions, beginning with the people who never take to a stage.

#IfICouldFixMusic

  • Every child would be taught to sing, play an instrument, and read music. One never truly begins to appreciate something until they understand it. Music education is fundamental and should be exceedingly well funded in every school.
  • Music theory classes wouldn’t be at 8:00 AM every morning. Too many promising music students have been lost because no one can make sense of counterpoint that early in the morning.
  • There would be no gender bias at any level. Do you realize how few female sound engineers there are? Or female orchestra conductors?
  • School guidance counselors would never say discouraging things like, “Music is already an over-saturated field; your odds of success are not good.” Yes, I’ve heard those words.
  • Access to instruments and instruction wouldn’t be so damned expensive. My parents sacrificed to pay for my piano lessons and college. The price of band and orchestra instruments is too prohibitive for too many people.
  • Community sing-a-longs would be a thing all the time, not just at Christmas.

Many of the problems that music faces start with the fact that our musical foundations aren’t strong. Talented people go unheard and undiscovered. People who could be talented are never given the opportunity to sing or play an instrument. Too many people talking and making decisions about music are uninformed and fail to understand music beyond its sales sheets. Music appreciation begins in pre-school and rudimentary education should start then so that, as we grow, we not only understand music better, but we can make better music.

#IfICouldFixMusic is one of those hashtags that could go on forever with a wishlist as long as the Internet. But without basic early music education, what’s the point?

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Fashion  /  Photography  /  PotD
Pictures Or It Didn’t Happen
February 15, 2016
charles i. letbetter - pictures or it didn't happen

The technology keeps moving forward, which makes it easier for the artists to tell their stories and paint the pictures they want.—George Lucas

 

charles i. letbetter - pictures or it didn't happen

The fascination with Instagram and Pinterest is more than an annoying habit; it’s changing the world

We’re calling them Generation Z, those who are currently teenagers, and already they’re having an impact on the world. Wth smartphones glued to their hands and cell phone cameras ever at the ready, one of the traits this generation has learned from the Millennials right before them is that experiences matter over materialism. The big difference between the two group of youngsters, though, is that Gen Z is finding ways to make everything they do an experience, whether it’s the ride to school, ice cream afterward, or brushing their teeth before bed. Everything ends up on Instagram. And if it’s going to be on Instagram, one has to look good doing it.

Helping teens decide what makes them look good is Pinterest. Unlike their parents, who use the social media app for things like recipes and decorating ideas, Gen Z pins pictures of street styles and ads from their favorite online magazines so they can put together their own wardrobe combinations; a little of this, a touch of that, and they have a look that is all their own.

Now, imagine what it would have been like had my generation had cameras at the ready and an easy distribution method when we were teens. While we almost certainly would have taken just as many pictures as teens today do, what we captured would have likely been different. For starters, I’m not sure how often we would have been able to see anything due to the overwhelming amount of smoke that was everywhere. Even the few of us who didn’t have a pack of cigarettes tucked away somewhere had plenty of friends who did, so even a picture from the back of the driver’s ed car would have had smoke. No wonder we’re all dying.

Would looking at pictures of ourselves all the time given us a better idea of what to wear? While I’m still seeing 70s influences for the third season in a row, most of us actually had the fashion sense of a squirrel, and if one looks at the majority of us today, that hasn’t changed much. Of course, we country kids weren’t as big on the super-wide bell bottom pants as the city kids were because they were a hazard; those flared legs were dangerous around farm implements, so we tended to keep our 501s with a boot leg for practical reasons.

One thing for certain, though, had we had phones back then with the capabilities of those today, we would have captured some kick-ass music events. Imagine recording AC-DC, The Rolling Stones, Jimmy Buffet, Foghat, Chicago, The Doobie Brothers, Three Dog Night, or Led Zepplin back in their prime! Bands that are being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame next month were still young, the concerts were legendary, and what happened after those concerts is responsible for Generation X. Imagine how great it would be if we had captured that all on Periscope and then saved it!

Being able to take plenty of pictures as we go through life sounds like a great thing, but there are consequences to such an over indulgence. The first one, right off the bat, is storage; it was a problem when I was a kid and it remains a problem now. We weren’t terribly shy about taking pictures when we considered it worthwhile, but where are those pictures now? Chances are, a few are stuffed in envelopes at the back of a drawer or file cabinet. My mother was into scrapbooking as she got older; what remains of ours are in a couple of large plastic containers under a bed at my brother’s house. Teens today, though, tend to not keep their pictures all that long. When the card on their phone begins to get full, they start deleting. They’re too young to realize the value of the pictures they’re taking today. After all, they’ll be taking more pictures tomorrow. Unfortunately, of all those experiences they are having, it’s not until years later that they’ll realize which ones were really important.

The other consequence is that taking so many pictures and sharing them changes how we shop. An article in Busines Insider this morning details how the Gen Z fascination with pictures and Instagram and other social media is killing more traditional retailers like the Gap, J. Crew, and Abercrombie & Fitch. Not only that, but it is that same attitude that is leading an increasing number of designers to shift their runway calendar so that instead of showing a season ahead for department store buyers, more and more are showing current season and allowing for instant online purchases immediately after the show, skipping both the buyer and the department stores all together.

How and when we take pictures, and our fascination with sharing them, changes our decision-making process, from where we go on vacation to what we’re having for dinner. Since almost everything we do ultimately has some economic tie to it, that impulse to share everything online is dramatically altering the world’s economy, for both better and worse.

When I first picked up a camera some 30+ years ago, my dream, along with those of my colleagues, was that maybe one of my pictures might have an impact on the world. Just one. Today, kids with smartphones are changing the world with every picture they take.

And more than ever, if there are no pictures, it didn’t happen.

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PotD  /  studio nudes
Real Love Leaves A Mark
February 14, 2016
charles i. letbetter - real love leaves a mark

Real love is a pilgrimage. It happens when there is no strategy, but it is very rare because most people are strategists.—Anita Brookner

 

charels i. letbetter - real love leaves a mark

One does not go in and out of love unscathed. Real love prevents us from ever being the same

Valentine’s Day makes life difficult with its damned if you do, damned if you don’t expectations that make life impossible whether one is in a relationship or not. This pseudo-holiday creates performance anxiety for relationships by forcing the question: is this love? And if this is love, is it real  love or just that momentary emotion one creates out of a desperate need to feel something positive about a person without making a commitment?

Superficial love can happen, and does happen, all the time. That love that lingers on the surface is circumstantial, though, and like oil on Teflon slips easily away with only a faint residue of memory left behind. That’s why such love needs baubles and trinkets and silly holidays; without those things, superficial love has no traction, goes nowhere, and quickly evaporates. Even then, and this is what proves frustrating, there’s no guarantee that any of those things will hold a love in place long enough for it to grow.

Real love, by contrast, goes deep, sets anchors, not just one but several because it has no plan for leaving, ever. Real love wants to be eternal and when that’s not possible, whether, by design or fate, we come out of it with indelible marks, signs of having wallowed in that deep emotion. The marks are not necessarily scars, though that can happen, but signs that one has participated in something larger than and outside of themselves.

Real love binds us to another soul. I think parents understand this better than anyone. The moment one looks into the eyes of their own child for the first time, it happens; we are captured by real love and forever linked to this tiny person no matter how they might behave or what poor choices they might make later in life. We’re ensnared not by a heart, but by another life and we can no sooner escape from them than they from us.

Real love is not monogamous for if it were we would never be able to love our own children. Real love spreads its tentacles and shows no favoritism. Real love does not love one more than another. Rather, real love reaches out to whoever will take it and draws all together, creating a web that holds everyone safely, equally.

Real love is symbiotic, taking as it needs, giving to nourish and support the other. Highways of emotion flow back and forth between those who love so deeply and sometimes the roads traveled most often are the first to wear out. Sometimes love replaces those paths, other times it finds new ways of achieving what is necessary.

Real love is not immortal, however. Kahlil Gibran reminds us that I-do’s do sometimes die. Reasons for such are myriad and not insignificant for such true love does not go easily nor quietly into the night. Struggles ensue as those anchors, one  by one, are ripped away, the ties broken, the highways crumbled. Ending such love is a process, not an event. One does not simply wake up one morning and decide to leave love on a shelf with a note.

So, love ends, and in its place are the marks, the reminders, the memories of where that love once stood. Sometimes those marks are painful and become scars, for love sometimes love is taken from us unwillingly, sometimes violently, and that hurts. More often than not, however, those marks are reminders of how we’ve grown and changed, like the height measurements of a child on the doorframe. We look back at those marks and smile, perhaps sad that those loves are gone, but happy that we had them for a while.

Then, love begins again, for it is always reaching out. Sure, pain and bitterness may give us cause to fight against it, but love that is real is impossible to put off or deny. True love does not have an agenda, and I’m no longer convinced it even knows how to read a map. Love chooses whoever love chooses simply because love chooses to choose. I am repeatedly reminding Kat that I love her because I love her. There is no other qualifier. While there are many things about her I appreciate, love is not dependent on the qualities of another but drops anchor wherever it chooses. We do not choose love; it chooses us.

And as love introduces us to another, we find marks on their lives, just as there are marks on ours, for they have loved before; they know the pain of loss and the joy of receiving. We embrace that new love and move forward, knowing that it will not disappear without a trace, and happy to be so marked.

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PotD
Opening Old Bottles Of Wine
February 13, 2016

Age is just a number. It’s totally irrelevant unless, of course, you happen to be a bottle of wine.—Joan Collins

 

charles i. letbetter - opening old bottles of wine

Relationships and conversations, like an open bottle of wine, have a point at which they are of no use to anyone

I was not raised in a house that understood wine. Sure, there was an academic knowledge of how it is made but beyond that, there was a fierce denial that wine could have any positive qualities at all. Our family not only didn’t drink, but we were raised to avoid anyone who did for fear they might be a “bad influence” on us, or drag down our reputation.

Then, I had my first glass of the real thing. Sweet. Red. Low alcohol content. I discovered that I could enjoy the glass presented with my desert and, contrary to all my mother’s warnings, not instantly become a gutter-hugging drunk. A few days later, I tried a glass of merlot with a meal and fell in love. I suddenly wanted to know everything about wine. I read. I talked to sommeliers. I went to tastings. We even bought a wine rack that was shaped like a cluster of grapes.

Normally, a bottle of wine never lasted more than 24 hours once it was opened. We enjoyed the wine too much to let any dregs sit in a bottle. One day, however, I was going through the wine rack looking for a specific vintage and came across a bottle that had been opened and then returned. When it had been opened, I didn’t know. Who had opened it was a mystery. The bottle was still almost full, less than half a glass had been removed. So, I took the bottle, removed the cork, and promptly took three steps back. The wine had turned to vinegar, and not a pleasant vinegar at that. Down the sink went the remains.

I bring up that subject because this weekend is one of those times when we can be tempted to re-open the old bottles of wine in our lives. With Valentine’s Day, we can be tempted to re-open past conversations, re-visit past relationships, things that we have left behind for good reason, but still wonder if they might yet be salvaged. The answer in most cases is no, they can’t. Like wine that has been opened, those things from the past have only soured.

One of the worst mistakes I made when I was younger was to re-open conversations that had been set aside. These would be tense words where no solution had been found, where walking away and not mentioning the matter had been the best solution. Conversations involving matters of human rights, religion, or constructs of government were topics that I frequently, and incorrectly, thought I had under command. I always thought I was right. Why else would I revisit  a topic if I wasn’t sure that I needed to correct a gross misunderstanding?

I can be a slow learner sometimes and didn’t realize that there are moments where being right or wrong on a topic is irrelevant. Acquaintances who were once friendly became distant and found reasons to avoid contact when they feared I might yet, again, bring up a conversation that had been uncomfortable or contentious. I was sadly oblivious to the social vinegar I was asking, forcing, others to drink.

Even worse can be when we return to past relationships. When I’m looking through old pictures, such as the two used here that are over ten years old, I often think to myself, “I wonder what they are doing now?” For better or worse, social media makes it easier than ever to answer that question. I’ll find someone on Facebook, or, far too frequently, LinkedIn will insist that I need to connect with someone I had willfully forgotten. Many times I am tempted to click that button, to make a new friend request, but I’ve learned to leave those old relationships alone and just enjoy the memories. If we have not spoken for years, there is quite likely a very good reason.

As I get older, I sometimes regret letting relationships grow sour, especially when a simple apology might have negated ill feelings in the first place. One sits and looks at that old bottle of wine wondering if it might yet be salvaged. Is it too late to apologize? If an apology is offered, will it be accepted?

Occasionally, I’ll come across an article (like this one) that claims to have a solution for “fixing” wine that has gone bad; it’s a nice dream, but I’ve not found one yet that actually works. Sure, we all like the fairy tale of lost souls finding each other again after all the years and falling in love, or becoming close friends. Sometimes the risk pays off and if that old bottle of wine represents a relationship with a family member, then perhaps taking the risk is justified.

Still, more often than not, it’s best to just not re-open those old bottles at all. Enjoy the memories of the wine when it was good. Keep the bottle as a token of a special time if you wish. But should you open that bottle, be prepared for the reality that all you’re likely to get is vinegar.

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PotD  /  Social Commentary
Some Days Just Suck
February 12, 2016
charles i. letbetter - some days just suck

Tonight I’ll dust myself off, tonight I’ll suck my gut in, I’ll face the night and I’ll pretend I got something to believe in.—Jon Bon Jovi

 

charles i. letbetter - some days just suck

Just as every day has the potential to be great, they have to potential to suck, and it’s not always your choice

I would very much like to meet the person who came up with the concept that every day is supposed to be bright, cheery, and wonderful. I would very much like to meet this person and come upside their head with a two-by-four. Why? Every day is not good. There is not always a reason to smile. Not every bad situation has a silver lining. Everything does not work out for the best. Some days just suck and to deny that censors feelings we legitimately need, such as anger, disappointment, and grief, if we are to ever improve our world. Remember: there are no bad emotions. Even the non-happy ones have their place.

So, here it is another Friday, the end of the work week, allegedly, and you have at least two, possibly three days off if you work for someone who observes President’s Day. Maybe you have big plans, have already spent a lot of money on deposits and such, and have everything arranged perfectly. You’ve done all you can and you’ve put your best effort into the whole weekend. Then, something happens, something you cannot control. Your father-in-law has a heart attack. Your car engine inexplicably blows a gasket in the middle of an intersection. That lovely person who was supposed to join you this weekend becomes ill and can’t stop puking. One of the children falls and breaks a limb. Suddenly, this Friday stops being happy and now, immediately, sucks. Your plans are ruined, your deposits are non-refundable, and all those perfect arrangements are irrelevant. There’s no recovery.

Sure, the day may suck. What’s important at this point is that you not deny how you feel. Don’t let someone tell you to suck it up. You can’t deal with those emotions until you admit that you have them. Be disappointed, there’s nothing wrong with that. Be angry, not in the sense that you fly off the handle and hurt someone else, but step away and punch the living hell out of a pillow or something. Go outside and scream. Let it out. Deal with those negative emotions.

No matter what we do, no matter how we try to live our lives as joyfully and righteously as possible, there are going to be days that suck, and they’re going to happen when it is least convenient to  put up with the sucking. Part of what makes a day suck is that it upsets what we were expecting from the day. Convenience isn’t in the cards when life suddenly turns sour. Even when you have some clue that a day is going to be difficult and you try to prepare yourself for the inevitable, it still can be worse than you ever expected.

My father died 14 years ago. We knew it was coming. If anything, we had hoped the end would come sooner because seeing him suffer through the deterioration caused by cancer was heart-wrenching. When I flew into Tulsa that morning, I knew what I was facing, that the inevitable had finally come. This was not going to be a good day. Yet, for all the mental and emotional preparation I had done, the moment he finally took his last breath, when the grip he had on my hand relaxed for the last time, when the hospice nurse looked at us and shook her head, the wave of grief that swept over me in that moment was unlike anything I had ever felt. This was more than just a bad day.

I didn’t think I would ever feel pain like that again, but I did. Six months and four days later I was called home from the office. Mother had fallen during the night and died quite unexpectedly. Not only was their grief, there was anger. I had just spoken to her the night before. What went wrong? To say that day sucked would be the most severe of understatements.

You’ve had days like that as well, maybe worse. I think of people who lose entire families in one fell swoop. People full of hope and opportunity are suddenly, for any number of reasons, paralyzed or struck with some seemingly random disease that dashes their hopes like glass on a concrete floor. A baby dies. A house catches fire. A dear pet is hit by a car. Those are all days that suck.

People are always trying to take a bad situation and make it better. Stop it. Let us deal appropriately with the bad, recognize tragedy for what it is, and then give people the space to move on in their own time, in their own way. Not every day gets to have a smile. Some days have tears, and that’s okay. Offer a tissue if you want to help, but never tell someone to not cry, to not feel whatever they’re feeling.

Some days just suck. Be a friend and accept that.

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pop culture  /  PotD
Only Tom Hardy Can Go Naked On TV
February 11, 2016
charles i. letbetter - only Tom Hardy gets to go naked on TV

If you look around Hollywood there’s no end of white smiles and six packs. Long lines of beautiful people lining up to be incredible on film.—Tom Hardy

 

charles i. letbetter - only Tom Hardy can be naked on TV

Why can’t she be naked on television? Apparently only because she’s female.

At first, I was rather amused when I read Vanity Fair’s story claiming that Tom Hardy is filming a period adventure drama in the nude. After all, Hardy’s new show, Taboo, is filming in Essex of all places. There’s no way that being naked in Essex this time of year is even remotely comfortable. Brush up on your Photoshop skills because someone is going to need them! The whole matter seems just a bit absurd.

The more I thought about it, though, it occurred to me that the strangeness isn’t that Hardy is nude as much as it is the fact they’re getting away with it. Granted, the BBC censors have long allowed for certain amounts of non-sexual nudity and from what I can gather there’s nothing sexy about the role Hardy is playing. However, the program is scheduled to appear on FX as well, which means there will be naked man parts on US television.

Now, there are still some caveats, such as the fact that one has to have a cable subscription or in some other form be paying to watch content from FX. There still isn’t any form of nudity intentionally allowed on broadcast television in the US, whether it’s Tom Hardy or anyone else. We also assume (though we could be wrong) that there is some justifiable reason for Hardy’s character to be running around in nothing but his ink.

But, consider Tom Hardy compared to the photo above. They’re both human. They both are familiar with a tattoo gun. And they’re both naked. Actually, Hardy is more naked than our model; he tosses his underwear and goes full monty. Yet, it’s okay when Tom Hardy does it, but considered criminal if our model were to do the exact same thing.

Are you beginning to see the problem here?

Of course, it’s not like gender discrimination is anything new. Women were screaming about it long before there was the Internet. The biggest difference between then and now and that more people are aware of the senseless discrepancy both in terms of law and practice. No one can claim ignorance anymore and the excuse that everyone is doing it only underscores the need for change.

Sexism is a problem all around the world, but it becomes difficult to battle when we see such biased values supported through media such as television. The qualities of Hardy’s character matter little in light of the fact that, were his character female exhibiting the exact same qualities and motivations, she would either have to put on clothes or risk being arrested and/or fined. Only Tom Hardy can be naked on TV. Anyone else has to cover up.

This is exactly the form of sexism that the #FreeTheNipple campaign protests. Double standards are abhorrent no matter where they occur and when they are so obviously gender-biased there is every good reason to use civil disobedience or whatever other means seem reasonable to protest. What’s important to realize in this case  is that we’re not opposed to Hardy being nude. Good for him! We’re happy! What rankles our temper just a bit is that it’s only Tom that can get away with this. A woman in the same role just wouldn’t fly past BBC or FX censors.

We’ve talked about the problem with gender bias and nudity before both here and here so I won’t bother repeating everything I’ve already said. Let’s just consider this a dramatic underscore. Tom Hardy doesn’t get special privileges.  If he gets to go naked on television, women deserve the right to do the same. No excuses.

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PotD  /  Social Commentary
Snapchat Is A Portal To Hell
February 10, 2016
charles i. letbetter - snapchat is a portal to hell

The information you get from social media is not a substitute for academic discipline at all.—Bill Nye

 

charles i. letbetter - snapchat is the portal to hell

The fact that we cannot be separated from our phones is disturbing enough, but to not use them the way we want is criminal

Look at the string of icons at the top of this page and one should understand that I am not shy to using social media. I have Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Tumblr, Skype, and Instagram all set up and at the ready anytime I feel their use to be justified. As with many websites, Facebook is responsible for most of the visitors coming to this page, with Twitter coming in second on most days. I have other apps just for social media on my phone, including Vine and Periscope and Yelp. Perhaps most importantly at this particular moment, I have the NYFW app that allows me to view fashion shows even when I’m stuck in traffic. Yay me, I  am so connected [insert eye roll here].

Yesterday, I received an email (you remember those, don’t you?) from my favorite editor at Pattern asking, “I’d love to figure out a way to use the reviews and the photos cross-platform…like on snapchat…do you know anything about creating graphics and uploading text to snapchat?”

Snapchat. There’s an app I wasn’t expecting to need. Instagram, sure. I know exactly how to work that one cross-platform. Pinterest? Not a problem; we can do that. But Snapchat? I don’t have a freaking clue, and with good reason: Snapchat is for teenagers.

Okay, so there’s no age filter on Snapchat that limits who can use it. Still, there are several apps on the market that are primarily the domain of teens and/or college students and I feel no compulsion to pretend I’m part of that group by downloading an app I’ll likely never use. Still, I told the editor I’d take a look. Having done so this morning, I can only come to one possible conclusion:

Snapchat is a portal directly to hell.

I should have known this app was going to be trouble when I first saw its logo. What is that thing? Is it a ghost? The soul of lost Snapchat users? A depiction of what your brain becomes after hours of Snapchatting? An unidentifiable GOP Presidential candidate? I should know better than to download an app whose logo I can’t dissect.

Next, as I go to download the app, a window pops up on my phone telling me all the things this app is going to access. My friends lists. My contacts. My location. My current physical position. The last five songs I’ve listened to on Spotify. My blood pressure (which is suddenly very high). My last doctor’s appointment. The list was so long I had to scroll. This can’t be good, can it? I have a very bad feeling in the pit of my stomach, but I promised I would take a look at the app and the only way to do that is to install it. Fortunately, my firstborn is already spoken for.

Upon completing the installation, one has to create an account. Immediately, I see another red flag: it won’t accept my full name. I’m still mad at Twitter for having dropped the final “r” from my name. I don’t like apps that won’t let me use my whole name because it’s dehumanizing. Not giving me space for my full name tells me they had lazy developers who didn’t want to create a database cell of sufficient size.  I feel as though a portion of my soul is being stripped away from me as I create my new account name: c.letbetter. Sigh. Do you realize how many c.letbetters there are in this world?

Once my account is set up, with both email and phone confirmation, Snapchat then asks me to create a profile picture. Now, normally, this isn’t a problem. I have a set of images sized specifically for social media profiles. After all, I’ve done this enough we should be experienced, right? No. This is Snapchat. There’s no warning what is about to happen. There’s no option to upload your own picture. No, you press a button, the app counts down from three and then this happens (warning: those with weak stomachs  or heart conditions may want to scroll down very rapidly):

charles i. letbetter - snapchat is a portal to hell

The most frightening thing I’ve seen in a long time.

Mind you, there is no option for editing out the bags under my eyes. There is no filter available. No, you just get a picture of me at 4:00 AM. At least, it should keep small children from accidentally adding me. We can only hope.

Next, they tell you that everything you do on Snapchat is in the moment. There’s no saving it for later. There’s no keeping it as a reference for what someone said or did. You create the Snapchat, someone sees it, and it’s gone. Hellooooooo trouble. This is probably why only teenagers use this damn thing; they’re not old enough yet to understand the need to save correspondence, even when it seems trivial at the moment. Snapchat opens the door to he-said-she-said arguments that are unsolvable because the whole record of the exchange is deleted. Sure, someone could always take a screenshot, but then faking a screenshot is rather easy.

Without evidence of any content, the door is open for all manner of malfeasance. One might share top secret information. An Apple employee in Ireland could let a hacker see their login info (for which hackers are paying a reported $10K). Vermin could run for President (oops, that one already happened). Your girlfriend could accidentally send nude pics to your mother. Just think of the horrors that could ensue!

Of course, all that is assuming that people add you. One cannot send a Snapchat to those who have not added them. Still, the more I’m reading about Snapchat hacking, the more I question just how insecure the whole platform may be.

There’s no question in my mind now that Snapchat is a portal to hell. And I still don’t have a clue how to cross-promote with it. NYFW starts tomorrow. Contact me the old fashioned way if you know how to solve this problem.

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