Jumbo Mishmash Zeitgeist Report!
With extra sauce
Welcome to Mess & Noise. Last issue was about labor and the dwindling professional class. If you’re new here, I also write about raising kids in the attention economy and being a working parent in NYC. I recently dropped a workplace guidebook called Pushing Back with Tact, which you can snatch up here for free. Paid subscribers will receive an extra monthly essay starting March 26.
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Also: Did you read or skim Pushing Back with Tact yet? If so, let me know what you thought.
Love for Labor
Thanks everyone for your feedback on The Labor Issue! Melanie Ehrenkranz dubbed it “cool and bleak,” which is apt. Here are some other reactions I saw around Substack and loved.
I had a conversation about AI with an Anonymous C-Suite Friend at a Tech Unicorn (ACSFAATU). He predicted “what’s coming” is going to be bigger than the previous tech supercycles that our generation has lived through so far:
“Up until now software has helped you do your job. With AI, software will be capable of doing most, if not all, of your job.”
Think GPS for Uber drivers vs. self-driving cars.
“The type of work people do will change, similar to what we’ve seen throughout history with technological advances,” ACSFAATU said. But we don’t know what that looks like yet.
Before that’s figured out, we should “start thinking about stuff like Universal Basic Income as machines begin to do all the work,” alluding to an economic landscape that looks like 18th Century France — before the revolution — where everyone’s hungry and has lots of free time on their non-laboring hands.
This is a center-right, rich white guy (he also wants me to mention he’s good looking, athletic, and funny with low ego) saying we’ll need to pay people to keep them from attacking the ruling class.
It’s funny to think about: The push for efficiency and automation by these tech oligarchs inadvertently ushering in a massive welfare state in order to sustain and protect itself.
But in the meantime…
Third-Place Fail
I’m obviously invested in the idea of media for the working class, especially now that “working class,” includes “white collar” jobs and “middle class” is an anachronism. I thought I could breeze into Brooklyn’s Central Library last Saturday night to hear Hamilton Nolan and Alissa Quart’s panel on the subject, but it was piggity-piggity packed and I couldn’t get in.
It turned out to be one of many over-capacity events at “Night in the Library” — literate Brooklyn’s answer to SXSW with proportionally long lines.
As a scene report, there was a standard mix of olds and nerds (hi) you’d expect at a free event at the library, but also expensive sneakers and lots of tote bags with screenprinted typography to signal the wearers’ taste, esotericism, or place of employment.
According to the BPL site, panels featured social researchers, mathematicians, an ACLU director, artists, authors…and dancers! (You can’t have a cultural event in Brooklyn without at least one dance team.) All made possible with funds from New York State and a private foundation for arts and human inquiry. New money technocrats could neverrrr.
There was a smaller but more animated turnout at City Hall last Wednesday, when New Yorkers United for Childcare rallied against proposed cuts to the city’s 3K program, and pushed to extend funding for 2’s.
I’ve written firsthand that NYC has become untenable for working families, increasingly so for the general middle class. The scam irony is we work so hard trying avoid poverty in this city — spending half our income on rent and the other half on child care — that there’s no bandwidth to engage in any meaningful action around the injustice of it.
So it was awesome to see people show up for working families at 10am on a workday and hear from a smattering of council members. One or two had aspiring-mayoral-candidate rizz, (though no current candidates made an appearance at this particular rally). Check out NYU4CC’s upcoming events here!
The Holdup and the Splashdown
I didn’t post last week because I had Diet Flu. If you’re unfamiliar, Diet Flu is what happens when you get a flu shot on time, but still catch a little something that keeps you in bed for 24 hours and gives you fever dreams without the actual fever.
When I had norovirus I couldn’t stop ruminating on HHS. This time I obsessed on the plastic spoon in my head. Is it like a Chinese takeout spoon’s worth, or the heftier kind you get at The Guggenheim cafeteria? Also, how are we supposed to function as a society, let alone in our individual daily lives, if we all have disposable spoons in our brains? It actually explains so much.
In a life-affirming 180, I thought the Space-X Dragon Freedom Splashdown was incredible to watch — despite its name, which sounds like a MAGA-bro’s energy drink of choice.
The flip from it being a black dot on the high-altitude camera to a full color, hi-res image from the ground, barreling through the atmosphere toward the ocean, was like seeing the second act of Wizard of Oz for the first time.
Watching the astronauts close their eyes and breathe deeply with their hands on their laps…They’re just like us! Trying to meditate our way through the wacky science fiction of life on earth. Then there was the teeth grinding anxiety of the comms blackout.
When the first two parachutes deployed, I gasped. Then the second two, and I whispered “nice” at my phone while my kids played on a jungle gym 20 feet away. (My son is the almost same age I was when The Challenger blew up live in my second grade classroom, so I wasn’t adamant about making them watch with me.)
Then the splashdown and the goddamned dolphins jumping for joy around the bobbing pod, which looked like a charred marshmallow in the water. I teared up, as one does hearing good news after lots of bad.
I’m also reading:
What the “deep state” of civil servants actually looks like.
Daniel Kahneman’s self-managed death > tech billionaires trying to live forever. Both roads lead back to men’s fear around losing control of their bodies and depending on others for care, but one makes more sense than the other.
European countries are expanding their militaries. Italy is the latest to follow suit and they’re leveraging private funds to do it. If there isn’t a WWIII, this will be a boon for their economy.
Corporate campuses are over. “Startup Nations” are the new blueprint. You might call them MendaCities!
I had no idea the founder of Polymarket is another 25-year old college dropout who is terminally bored with regulatory compliance. The end of his profile has some chef’s kiss irony.
Karen Read trial: The citizen journalism and obsessions of Turtleboy (Full disclosure: I drove by Waterfall Bar & Grille and 34 Fairview Road last time I was in Canton, MA. I’m only human!)
Backyard swimming lessons that sparked an HOA war.
A front-yard treehouse that’s become a legal headache for its builder. (It was later demolished, which appeals to some latent California Libertarian sense in me, I’m loathe to admit.)
“If you think you're smart and special, you want more than a big bank account. You want an intellectual-sounding rationale for why you deserve it.” BI on the Godfather of DOGE. (This is the last of these pieces I’m reading, by the way. Less psychoanalyzing these bros, more walloping their wallets please.)
And a recommendation! Glengarry Glenn Ross on Broadway
It’s still in previews so it was a little wobbly, but I can’t think of a better lineup than Bob Odenkirk, Kieran Culkin and Bill Burr for this revival.
Aside from Michael McKean, who is a national treasure at this point, Burr gave the best performance. I couldn’t tell if he made it look easy by essentially playing Bill Burr, or if he’s just the best suited for the stage out of this group of TV actors.
Are you wondering who plays the Alec Baldwin character? Don’t, because it only exists in the movie. The “ABC” monologue doesn’t appear in the original play, and this production keeps it that way. (We’re watching the movie this weekend because we kinda missed it).
It’s a fun look at a lost era of business, salesmanship, and because it’s a Mamet play, masculinity. We’ve traded cigarettes, alchoholism, and the hand-to-hand combat of in-person sales for Manosphere podcasts, data brokers, and “building personal brands” on LinkedIn.
👋 Big Hi to New Subs! 👋
Hello and welcome to Melanie E., Mega, Kit C., Joe V., Natasha V., Moriah K., Elizabeth B., Laura, Pamela D., Ralph B., Daisy, and an extra-special shoutout to Kate C. for upgrading!
❤️ I should also shout-out my husband Luke, who’s the “we” I usually refer to when I say stuff like “we saw a play…” We celebrated our 7th wedding anniversary recently (with said Broadway show) and have weathered COVID and raising two small kids during those years. It’s easier to be me when I am part of our We. ❤️
One last question before I go!
Not sure if I’ll actually change cadence, but just curious.
That’s it for this one. See you soon!
Your "Jumbo Mishmash Zeitgeist Report" offers an engaging and eclectic mix of contemporary observations. The way you weave together various cultural and societal trends provides readers with a comprehensive snapshot of the current zeitgeist. Your unique perspective adds depth and nuance to the discourse, making it both informative and thought-provoking.