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The flash mob hoax

Not only was the flash mob a vacuous fad; it was, in its very form (pointless aggregation and then dispersal), intended as a metaphor for the hollow hipster culture that spawned it. I know this because I happen to have been the flash mob’s inventor.

Harper’s senior editor Bill Wasik tells all in a very interesting article [part 1. Experiment, 2. Propagation and Backlash, 3. Co-optation, 4. Bloggers, 5. Experimental Effects on Subjects]. This puts events like the Toronto subway party and the Vancouver zombiewalk in a new light – just part of one guy’s experiment? It’s an interesting essay overall though.

Original link courtesy of Beestar via Zhan. Photo is property of Mike Epstein.

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Back to Vancouver

I’m now back in Vancouver. I’m not going to make this webpage a tell-all about my personal life, but let’s just say that I had two major downers during my ten weeks in Toronto. (Talk to me in person if you want the gory details.)

So, it’s nice to be back. I’ve spent too much time away from town – five of the last nine months were spent outside Vancouver. The cherry trees are just starting to flower, the back yard is filled with thick, lush grass, the slopes have a healthy amount of snow, and the grapefruit are hatching.

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The joys of tsuji-giri

There’s nothing like the strange details of a foreign language, as I discovered when I found a review of an intriguing book of world vocabulary. Who knew that tsuji-giri is a samurai-era term for “to try out a new sword on a passer-by?” And why do I wish we had a word like qiang jingtou to describe “the fight by a cameraman to get a better vantage point”?

I think finding untranslatable words is part of the joy of learning another language, along with the particular rhythm and manner of speaking. I remember that feeling when I first learned the French verb tutoyer, the act of becoming more friendly with someone by switching from using vous to tu.

Link courtesy of Anatole.