I am not a fearful person. In fact I loathe being afraid. I am suspicious of organizations that rule by fear (that easily includes almost all religions, dictatorships, bad parenting, hot drink movements....) Yet I am ruled by one fear, the fear of the online me. I google myself in regular intervals. No, not in the way of some 7 years ago when I giddily embraced my new found notoriety on this world-wide stage called the Internet. I must be somebody worth writing about, I innocently and vainly thought. So 20th century. That elation is years gone. I now google myself as my own cop, monitoring what is out there about me. Patrolling the cyber streets of Dagmar Hovestadt. And mostly I now shudder.
I have a website so the aggregators like vultures feast on information and photos that I put out there. At least it was me who made that available for all to see. So no secret there. Yet I had potential clients and friends in mind, people I know, I had met in real life when I started the site, not pipl.com, snitch or 123people who put my online info in neat files that read like dossiers. I am linkedin and on xing, the business versions of social networking sites. Another big chunk of data on me I voluntarily feed to the vultures. No Facebook, no MySpace, no Hi5, no Twitter, I avoid those for what it's worth.
A while back I found my actual birth date, ethnicity and a file number of a court case on criminal searches. Driving too fast in Eastern Arizona and getting caught by a highway patrol officer will lead to that. At the time that event happened 5 years ago and I had gone to online (!) traffic school to take care of the ticket. Successfully. I was incensed over the entry in criminalsearches. Called the court in Eastern Arizona asking them to close access to my file. Which, to my surprise, a very eager clerk promised to do. "Shouldn't be available online, your case. It was all taken care of. It should be sealed in 48 hours." Of course that wouldn't take it off that website of a private company that scours public "criminal" records, feeds their server and makes it available to anyone through their website search.
So I sent an e-mail to the website, stubborn and curious, convinced it would be a cry in the desert. I did mention "cease and desist" in the e-mail and "lawyer". Within 20 minutes I had a reply, from Vanessa who informed that they did receive my request to edit information on me and that the process is completed. To my satisfaction. I cannot be found on their website anymore. Score! I was proud to have slain one of the dragons. But really - how many other sites are out there looking for data on me? And who else is? What for? Who am I out there to whom? Maybe I am just way too paranoid and take myself too seriously. Classic 20th century. So worried about my privacy. Holding on to that feeling for as long as I can. Which unfortunately fills me with cyber anxiety, my own version of a Woody Allen relationship to the (cyber) world.
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Sunday, July 18, 2010
heat
Summer is hot now. The ACs are whirring around me. The whole neighborhood is abuzz. I stay cool by keeping a cool mind. As long as the temperature don't hit the triple digits I tell my mind it is not really all that hot. Just like I tell my mind that I don't really have a jet lag and command it to program itself to the place of arrival when I board the plane. It works. That is why you have a mind, so you can use it, to fool yourself.
AC is highly overrated. Most of the time, when it's on, it is way too cold. Without it, I admit you sweat a little. But I try to go the Spanish way, keep the curtains down during the day, air the place out during the night. In LA it gets really fresh and cool once the sun is down. No problem. AC is costing too much for nothing essential but creature comfort (except when it is over 100, then babies, old people and hospitals certainly need it).
Today in the LAT today someone popped up who wrote a whole book about artificial cooling. "Losing Our Cool: Uncomfortable Truths About Our Air-Conditioned World" written by Stan Cox. His thesis is that AC empowered the trek to the West to overpopulate a place that you normally wouldn't flood to in such huge quantities if it wasn't for AC. Cutting it out is an easy way to safe energy. Lots of it. AC is just another dead end on the altar of technology. Right up there with SUVs. Ideas for a world that is blind to the realities of the consequences wasting resources.
Speaking of. Friday night I went downtown to enjoy a French band playing on a public square for a happy audience on a beautiful summer night. "Caravan Palace" swings it old style with a nice house-beat underneath, perfect summer evening music to dance to and let lose on the Grand Plaza. No wonder those European free-spirits tried an old fashioned way to cool down the hundreds dancing at their feet. The band played on a stage behind a little pool, an urban design thing to please the eyes amidst high rises and concrete squares. The water separated them from an enthusiastic crowd. Which the cute and very animated singer didn't like. She climbed down the stage, into the pool of shallow water to do what any normal person would do: She asked the crowd to join her and dance and play in the water. What else is summer for? I watched from atop and knew how this would end.
The European in me felt cool and normal, the Californian in me felt giddy and anxious. The thing about public spaces here is that they are organized by rules that make it impossible to truly use them as a human being. No drinking, no smoking, no messing with pretty ponds. But the singer was so excited that even the Angelenos relented. Maybe it was okay, for that one night to just jump in. And for a moment there was a childlike happiness of dozens of people splashing in the water, dancing, turning, feeling giggly and elated, for jumping in the element and doing something forbidden. Hundreds around watched and clapped and hooted and loved that moment - that ended after 2 minutes with the singer back on stage apologizing with an irresistible French accent for having disturbed the order of things. "I ham sorrieeehhh. You cannut bieh in ze wat-errr." And because the devil was out the box the concert organizer had to take the mic and shush everyone back to the dry land. "We have to stop the concert right now if you do not leave the pond. I am sorry. We will lose our permit. The mosaic in the pond has to be protected. Please get out of the water."
Way to spoil a cool down moment. The French musicians on stage were a bit flabbergasted and didn't see the problem. I totally got that. They just laughed at the weird rules that exist in LA and blasted on with their fun swinging sound. But I was also happy to see the Angelenos, pushed by a French girl, forget about the orderly behavior and just do what you do when it's a beautiful summer night: you use the pleasures of water, the public space and the mood and live.
AC is highly overrated. Most of the time, when it's on, it is way too cold. Without it, I admit you sweat a little. But I try to go the Spanish way, keep the curtains down during the day, air the place out during the night. In LA it gets really fresh and cool once the sun is down. No problem. AC is costing too much for nothing essential but creature comfort (except when it is over 100, then babies, old people and hospitals certainly need it).
Today in the LAT today someone popped up who wrote a whole book about artificial cooling. "Losing Our Cool: Uncomfortable Truths About Our Air-Conditioned World" written by Stan Cox. His thesis is that AC empowered the trek to the West to overpopulate a place that you normally wouldn't flood to in such huge quantities if it wasn't for AC. Cutting it out is an easy way to safe energy. Lots of it. AC is just another dead end on the altar of technology. Right up there with SUVs. Ideas for a world that is blind to the realities of the consequences wasting resources.
Speaking of. Friday night I went downtown to enjoy a French band playing on a public square for a happy audience on a beautiful summer night. "Caravan Palace" swings it old style with a nice house-beat underneath, perfect summer evening music to dance to and let lose on the Grand Plaza. No wonder those European free-spirits tried an old fashioned way to cool down the hundreds dancing at their feet. The band played on a stage behind a little pool, an urban design thing to please the eyes amidst high rises and concrete squares. The water separated them from an enthusiastic crowd. Which the cute and very animated singer didn't like. She climbed down the stage, into the pool of shallow water to do what any normal person would do: She asked the crowd to join her and dance and play in the water. What else is summer for? I watched from atop and knew how this would end.
The European in me felt cool and normal, the Californian in me felt giddy and anxious. The thing about public spaces here is that they are organized by rules that make it impossible to truly use them as a human being. No drinking, no smoking, no messing with pretty ponds. But the singer was so excited that even the Angelenos relented. Maybe it was okay, for that one night to just jump in. And for a moment there was a childlike happiness of dozens of people splashing in the water, dancing, turning, feeling giggly and elated, for jumping in the element and doing something forbidden. Hundreds around watched and clapped and hooted and loved that moment - that ended after 2 minutes with the singer back on stage apologizing with an irresistible French accent for having disturbed the order of things. "I ham sorrieeehhh. You cannut bieh in ze wat-errr." And because the devil was out the box the concert organizer had to take the mic and shush everyone back to the dry land. "We have to stop the concert right now if you do not leave the pond. I am sorry. We will lose our permit. The mosaic in the pond has to be protected. Please get out of the water."
Way to spoil a cool down moment. The French musicians on stage were a bit flabbergasted and didn't see the problem. I totally got that. They just laughed at the weird rules that exist in LA and blasted on with their fun swinging sound. But I was also happy to see the Angelenos, pushed by a French girl, forget about the orderly behavior and just do what you do when it's a beautiful summer night: you use the pleasures of water, the public space and the mood and live.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
my thumb
A little while ago the niece and nephew came to town. First time in LA for real. 13 and 15 years old. No discussions, they deserve a tour of what the city is about. That meant (because the aunt doesn't approve of advertising consumption as an actual fulfilling leisure activity) no shopping malls (the stores in the burbs where they are from are the same anyway), but the LACMA, downtown, the Walk of Fame, the boardwalk in Venice, the new skate park on the beach (nephew is an avid skater) a farmer's market down our street (those kids had not idea this exists...) and because they are teenagers, an amusement park. Hollywood's own Universal Studios theme park. Always fun to tour the back lot and think you are close to where "the movies" are being made. Also they have a new Simpsons ride and the sun was shining.
Standing in line we debated for a moment to save $5 or actually pay full prize and get the annual pass. I had gone to the park with a girl-friend of mine on visit from Germany a few years back and had committed to the one year thing - only to find out I didn't go again. Guess I am not excited enough about amusement parks to feel drawn there again and again. But, since it doesn't cost anything extra you may as well...
Last time you had to have a picture taken that would be printed on that plastic 1-year card as to make sure only you would use that special access to the park. But technology progresses. To a police treatment. "For my protection" my thumb print was taken and associated with the pass. I wanted to refuse and yet I pressed that digit on the glass plate, staring at the indifferent park entrance girl with her blue Universal emblazoned polo shirt. "This is terrible." I say to her shrugging. "Makes it the easiest, just how we do it. It's for your own protection." What are you protecting me from? You gather forensic evidence for what? My sensibilities are those of a dinosaur in the digital age. It is just my thumb. But the only other time that is required is when I enter this country at the border. Iris scan and thumb print. Trickled down as the procedure to enter an amusement park. Digital markers everywhere. Credit card swipes, online traffic, GPS stamps, cell phone coordinates - why this indignation about just one more thumb print? Because it deserves to be recorded. That in 2010 it is normal to be treated like a felon in police custody when you go to an amusement park.
Standing in line we debated for a moment to save $5 or actually pay full prize and get the annual pass. I had gone to the park with a girl-friend of mine on visit from Germany a few years back and had committed to the one year thing - only to find out I didn't go again. Guess I am not excited enough about amusement parks to feel drawn there again and again. But, since it doesn't cost anything extra you may as well...
Last time you had to have a picture taken that would be printed on that plastic 1-year card as to make sure only you would use that special access to the park. But technology progresses. To a police treatment. "For my protection" my thumb print was taken and associated with the pass. I wanted to refuse and yet I pressed that digit on the glass plate, staring at the indifferent park entrance girl with her blue Universal emblazoned polo shirt. "This is terrible." I say to her shrugging. "Makes it the easiest, just how we do it. It's for your own protection." What are you protecting me from? You gather forensic evidence for what? My sensibilities are those of a dinosaur in the digital age. It is just my thumb. But the only other time that is required is when I enter this country at the border. Iris scan and thumb print. Trickled down as the procedure to enter an amusement park. Digital markers everywhere. Credit card swipes, online traffic, GPS stamps, cell phone coordinates - why this indignation about just one more thumb print? Because it deserves to be recorded. That in 2010 it is normal to be treated like a felon in police custody when you go to an amusement park.
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
school of Iggy
Well, roll over, Woodstock. Says Iggy Pop and perfectly happens to hit upon a feeling that is a deep-seated itch of mine. He spoke those words as he accepted the induction of the Stooges into the Rock’n’Roll Hall of Fame. A perfect little quip for the well heeled, well dressed, well preserved crowd in front of him. The Stooges finally got their place in that hall – curiously together with ABBA, who only sent A and B to the ceremony. The other B had a family thing in Sweden and A doesn’t like to fly anymore.
Regardless.
Iggy was up on stage, soon bare-chested, skinny, bony, tendon-baring, shaggy hair and ever the rebel rouser that pushed rock ‘n’ roll over the edge, helped turn it into an angry noisy crooked version, trailblazing a path to be followed by a lot of great punk and alternative music. He might not have meant those four words exactly how I heard them, but to me they were a final release. Done with Woodstock! That annoying love fest of the boomers who have tortured the rest of us over four decades with it. An at best mediocre 3 day concert. Yeah, yeah, I know all the names and all the protests and all the power that every true boomer cannot resist to brag about. I understand it was earth-shattering.
And why? Because boomers, so enamored with their own importance, have more than achieved their not so secret mission of boomerizing everything around them. Telling everyone who didn't want to listen how IMPORTANT what they did was. How amazing the music was. How much better their ideas of society were.
It wouldn’t be so annoying to me if they weren’t so much in love with their own revolutionary uniqueness, over and over, for decades, as if life doesn't continue. As if those after them didn't produce their own revolutions. In the ensuing decades the boomers have subverted every single one of their anti-establishment ideas to profit from them. And still hit everyone over the head with how much they changed it all for us. Thanks. The world would be a better place had the boomers just shut up like every other youth movement and found an adult place in society to change things for the better.
Roll over, Woodstock. Iggy is right. And in case you were thinking birth years. Being born in the boomer years doesn’t automatically make you a boomer. Being a boomer is a state of mind that exclusively looks at the world through a revolt from 40 years ago, completely unfazed by all the things that the present teaches you, overlay-ed with the notion that it is still the mother of all things.
I guess I just don't like being stuck. The mind has so many more ways to go around. That is why I came here, to look at the same things differently. I like to move along. Find new insights, topple old ways. Boomers don't. Roll over.
Regardless.
Iggy was up on stage, soon bare-chested, skinny, bony, tendon-baring, shaggy hair and ever the rebel rouser that pushed rock ‘n’ roll over the edge, helped turn it into an angry noisy crooked version, trailblazing a path to be followed by a lot of great punk and alternative music. He might not have meant those four words exactly how I heard them, but to me they were a final release. Done with Woodstock! That annoying love fest of the boomers who have tortured the rest of us over four decades with it. An at best mediocre 3 day concert. Yeah, yeah, I know all the names and all the protests and all the power that every true boomer cannot resist to brag about. I understand it was earth-shattering.
And why? Because boomers, so enamored with their own importance, have more than achieved their not so secret mission of boomerizing everything around them. Telling everyone who didn't want to listen how IMPORTANT what they did was. How amazing the music was. How much better their ideas of society were.
It wouldn’t be so annoying to me if they weren’t so much in love with their own revolutionary uniqueness, over and over, for decades, as if life doesn't continue. As if those after them didn't produce their own revolutions. In the ensuing decades the boomers have subverted every single one of their anti-establishment ideas to profit from them. And still hit everyone over the head with how much they changed it all for us. Thanks. The world would be a better place had the boomers just shut up like every other youth movement and found an adult place in society to change things for the better.
Roll over, Woodstock. Iggy is right. And in case you were thinking birth years. Being born in the boomer years doesn’t automatically make you a boomer. Being a boomer is a state of mind that exclusively looks at the world through a revolt from 40 years ago, completely unfazed by all the things that the present teaches you, overlay-ed with the notion that it is still the mother of all things.
I guess I just don't like being stuck. The mind has so many more ways to go around. That is why I came here, to look at the same things differently. I like to move along. Find new insights, topple old ways. Boomers don't. Roll over.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
book of face
I’ve received about 10 of them over the past year. Generic e-mails, telling me so and so would like to be my friend on Facebook or wants to show me photos, but I would have to join, here’s the link. I delete the message. Occasionally there is another mail reminding me of who has already invited me to join, 6 people, neatly listed with a photo. To the trash it goes. More often even I’ve had to answer the question face to face: “Why are you NOT on Facebook?” I shrug and say, it sucks up too much time. I don’t like it. But really…
Why am I not?
It would be beneficial. As an ex-pat you can easily stay in touch with a lot of people in the old country and friends and acquaintances across the US. You can see what they are up to, they know what your are working on. They can even see where you’ve been, by looking at the photos you post and the video. You can turn it into a great marketing tool for your business. After all I am a free-lancer, I like to communicate, to write, to photograph and to stay in touch.
Why am I nowhere to be found on Facebook?
Because I can. Because I allow myself the luxury of it. Because I like that, a lot. To not be found. To not let everyone know what I am up to on a daily, weekly basis. To not throw out my likes and dislikes, my favorite websites, bands and movies, my photos, my friends or virtual friends for all the millions on Facebook to see. Yes, I can change the privacy settings and limit access to most of my information to only the select few. But how do I select? What does it mean if I do not accept friend requests of dozens of people, while I allow others? And would I be able to stand only having 50 instead of 500 friends, which would probably be an enviable sign of my online popularity? Isn’t that why people do it, to show how many they know, to network? To connect for business or social gain?
I guess I could spend a little time to find answers to these questions, come to my own conclusions and design my FB presence accordingly. But there is one more thing, that is hard to overcome. Facebook caters to the hard-wired peeping tom instincts in humans. It feels weird. You click through people’s pages and there is all this stuff, their photos, their friends, their descriptions, their updates. Who are these people? Who do they know? What does it say about them? Do they just play, portray a version of themselves they think is cool, fun, interesting? All pretense, no reality? How does the Facebook version relate to the real person? Why am I even clicking through this, what am I looking for, why should that interest me?
It feels strange and wrong to browse through Facebook (which I obviously have done, I am a journalist after all and I do not like to be completely ignorant of the facts). To snoop around all these people’s profiles. Gossip fodder. It feels like I am sitting again in the archives of the Stasi or looking through some FBI file, browsing through their compilations of people’s life. Most of those reports are as well meaningless accumulations of everyday life. Yet they were important for a regime, they used to make a political system feel safe about its citizens, they gave the government the feeling of control over someone who raised suspicion. All the mundane banalities of everyday life became meaningful not to last because they were printed in black and white on hundreds of pages of paper, complemented by secretly shot photos, compiled over years and then in their quantity signifying control over another person’s life.
I know, on Facebook, the reports are just posted on a server, in color, reported not by secret agents but by the subjects themselves. They want the world to know. Why am I thinking of the Stasi? The FBI? It is a big and heavy comparison without much rational base only justified by one thing – the way it makes me feel.
Facebook makes me cringe. I don’t want to be one those reporting on themselves. I am a thoroughly modern person, loving my gadgets, the unfathomable change of human existence through the digitization of information, my Wired subscription, heck, my blog! I just don’t like Facebook because I don’t like how it feels to me and what it does to you as a person in constant need to feed that virtual existence to all the “friends” out there with stuff that somehow is supposed to mean something.
It doesn’t to me, so I remain off Facebook.
Why am I not?
It would be beneficial. As an ex-pat you can easily stay in touch with a lot of people in the old country and friends and acquaintances across the US. You can see what they are up to, they know what your are working on. They can even see where you’ve been, by looking at the photos you post and the video. You can turn it into a great marketing tool for your business. After all I am a free-lancer, I like to communicate, to write, to photograph and to stay in touch.
Why am I nowhere to be found on Facebook?
Because I can. Because I allow myself the luxury of it. Because I like that, a lot. To not be found. To not let everyone know what I am up to on a daily, weekly basis. To not throw out my likes and dislikes, my favorite websites, bands and movies, my photos, my friends or virtual friends for all the millions on Facebook to see. Yes, I can change the privacy settings and limit access to most of my information to only the select few. But how do I select? What does it mean if I do not accept friend requests of dozens of people, while I allow others? And would I be able to stand only having 50 instead of 500 friends, which would probably be an enviable sign of my online popularity? Isn’t that why people do it, to show how many they know, to network? To connect for business or social gain?
I guess I could spend a little time to find answers to these questions, come to my own conclusions and design my FB presence accordingly. But there is one more thing, that is hard to overcome. Facebook caters to the hard-wired peeping tom instincts in humans. It feels weird. You click through people’s pages and there is all this stuff, their photos, their friends, their descriptions, their updates. Who are these people? Who do they know? What does it say about them? Do they just play, portray a version of themselves they think is cool, fun, interesting? All pretense, no reality? How does the Facebook version relate to the real person? Why am I even clicking through this, what am I looking for, why should that interest me?
It feels strange and wrong to browse through Facebook (which I obviously have done, I am a journalist after all and I do not like to be completely ignorant of the facts). To snoop around all these people’s profiles. Gossip fodder. It feels like I am sitting again in the archives of the Stasi or looking through some FBI file, browsing through their compilations of people’s life. Most of those reports are as well meaningless accumulations of everyday life. Yet they were important for a regime, they used to make a political system feel safe about its citizens, they gave the government the feeling of control over someone who raised suspicion. All the mundane banalities of everyday life became meaningful not to last because they were printed in black and white on hundreds of pages of paper, complemented by secretly shot photos, compiled over years and then in their quantity signifying control over another person’s life.
I know, on Facebook, the reports are just posted on a server, in color, reported not by secret agents but by the subjects themselves. They want the world to know. Why am I thinking of the Stasi? The FBI? It is a big and heavy comparison without much rational base only justified by one thing – the way it makes me feel.
Facebook makes me cringe. I don’t want to be one those reporting on themselves. I am a thoroughly modern person, loving my gadgets, the unfathomable change of human existence through the digitization of information, my Wired subscription, heck, my blog! I just don’t like Facebook because I don’t like how it feels to me and what it does to you as a person in constant need to feed that virtual existence to all the “friends” out there with stuff that somehow is supposed to mean something.
It doesn’t to me, so I remain off Facebook.
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