Ok.  So back to my time-travel internal debate for a moment here…

If, IF, I were to go back in time, which I have considered on many many many occassions, I am generally presented with a common concern, which is how to ‘fit in’ during that era, lest I risk being discovered as a time traveller.  (The ramifications I have yet to explore…).  Above is a great illustration of how I find this scenario to be problematic, and pervasive to most time travellers.

I am going to make a few assumptions here first:

1. This picture is not recent, and is well over a decade or two old, which therefore means it was taken in the PAST.

2. These people are twins (irrelevant, but in the name of science, necessary information somehow).

3. Jeans with chaps BUILT-IN were in someone’s mind cool for at least a few months.  Maybe weeks.

4. They are most likely not ‘unpopular’ people, given their confidence in wearing such inspired fashion, regardless of the decade.

5. They may be sponsored by Diet Pepsi (also irrelevant but interesting to note).

SO, with these premises in mind, I now flash back to my arriving in the late 1980′s / early 1990′s and encountering these people.  Please bear in mind, I must not be discovered, for being discovered as a future-dweller has awful repercussions.  I am obviously in some form of chrono-local attire to blend it, albeit, nothing involving chaps or long hair.  If I were to meet these people, I would face a very difficult conundrum.

How do I not laugh out loud seeing their clothes!?

Seriously.  It’s a big concern of mine.  If these people are super cool, I would be showing a complete disregard for what is ‘super cool’ and risk being discovered. (Note: it is important that I am perceived as super-cool in my time traveling scenarios – no explanation required). But I really really really would want to laugh.  Badly.

It’s problems like this that force me to ask: WWMJFD?

What indeed.  And why is this the first thing I think of when looking at old photos??

- B -

(image: awkwardfamilyphotos.com)

I suppose it must take a very intimate understanding of LEGO pieces, and construction techniques, as well as a loads of patience and trial and error, to make these fantastic sculpture.  It really speaks volumes about a couple of interesting theories both provided by our good friend Malcolm Gladwell, one from Blink and the other from Outliers.  The former relates to being so familiar with your subject or expertise that it is just ‘understood’ how these things are done (similar to learning music I’ve found) the latter relates to the ’10,000 hours’ principle that suggests anyone can become an expert at something if they have 10,000 hours of time to explore it.   It reminds me of my own creative experiments with LEGO, including using the heads of the mini figures on things like trees (Tree people!), buildings (Building people!) and vehicles (Road kill!).  Not anywhere near as successful as these examples, but it makes me wonder where I would be today had I continued exploring that particular creative outlet.

Hmmmm.

Either way, it’s very cool.  Hat’s off LEGO people!

- B -

So, last week I decided to get my thumb a little more green and try my hand at some home-grown horticulture.  This is a weighty decision after roughly 10 years of routinely killing plants in my posession, but is mostly the result of a fantastic gift from my sister, as well as a small population of fancy plants that I am now trying my very best to keep alive.   It turns out, naming plants helps!  I have Guillaume, my Ginger-Root Bonsai; Jean-Marcel, my tiny assymetrical pine bonsai… and two others that I forget the names of now (and conversely aren’t getting as much attention…).  Oh and a bamboo plant. ANYWHO, I also have a tiny greenhouse now, full of tiny Herberts, which I am going to nurture into my own little garden full of fresh herbs for me to eat!

It’s so fun to watch these plants grow!  I imagine this is an accurate reflection of how exciting my working hours can be these days, but it has also helped me to solidify my perception of life on this earth.  Amazing.  Some dry little seeds have become living, breathing, yummy plants. Just the other day, I was formulating a theory on how pets are actually our slaves, and it struck me how all life on earth is equal, be it human, animal or even plants.  It does the same thing: grow from a seed, bloom grow, age, and eventually wither away and die.  Or be eaten.  It was a revelation that was provided me a startling clarity for the entire day actually!

So I am now the patriarch of a family that consists of about 12 healthy Basil plants (Hebert St. Basil), about 8 healthy Thyme plants (Herbert Thymington I presume?), a couple of sprigs of Cilantro (Capt. Herbert Coriander), some Oregano (Monsignor Herberto Oregano) and some very sprightly Dill weed (Dillbert).  {The only sad sack in the group is the Rosemary, who hasn’t done BUPKISS since being planted.}

Nevertheless, the whole family appears to be getting along well so far.  It feels pretty good to have this little bit of extra life in the apartment; it would be even better if it could play with my cat, who is getting pretty needy in the attention department these days.  Either way, I’ll keep the whole world posted on my herbs in a later post.  Maybe with a recipe.

- B -

Despite my Irish ancestry, and my family name’s predominantly Irish origins, a whole WHACK of the other Ben McEvoy’s are from Australia! What’s more half of them work in IT. One notable exception is the up and coming Rugby star, Ben McEvoy.  Also weird… we are almost all brown haired, bespectacled and dashing young men.  Some of us are musicians (props to that), others are world travellers, yet others are social butterflies and superstar athletes.  It’s thrilling to know that there are other people out there in the wide world with the same name, living out a life as Ben McEvoy.  Sure not the EXACT same name (some of these fellas are probably Benjamins, or have different middle names such as Xavier or something).  Still, I would love to invite them to my house someday so we could all revel in our same named-ness.  How cool would that be?   And how surreal??

Answer: very cool. And VERY surreal.

Question to my (two) readers.  What is the protocol in contacting the other Ben McEvoys?  Do you think it would be weird?  This is probably one of the few times in history that one could organize a party of only Ben McEvoys… truly uncharted social terrain.  I could create a facebook page… we could have a secret password.  We could talk about what’s it like being Ben McEvoy… oh the crazy conversations we would have!  We could trade licenses!  Passports!  Lives!

So, other ‘me’s: Feel free to contact me at a special address for us Ben McEvoys: thatsmynametoo (at) benmcevoy (dot) com.  I’d welcome the opportunity to meet you and strengthen our mutual Ben McEvoy powers!  Methinks an experiment may be in order… Stay tuned!

- B -

p.s. just considered a possible downside to this experiment, which I will tentatively title the ‘Highlander’ syndrome… what if, similar to my matter/anti-matter concerns of contacting other Ben McEvoys, we are forced by our very primal nature to compete in fatal swordplay to determine who is the ultimate Ben McEvoy?  Better bone up on my fencing, just in case…

You know the type: they start crossing in the middle of the block while there is a gap in the traffic on a single lane, busy street, between the parked cars.  They are generally crossing from the opposite side that you are driving on.  They notice a gap in the traffic from the nearest side of the street and begin to cross, and then half way through they look the other way and realize the depth of their judgement in your distance from them.  Your eyes meet.  And you slow down.  They recognize this change in your speed and continue to run across the street so as to let you carry on your way.  Here’s where it gets strange…  instead of running the entire distance across your lane, and to the safety of the sidewalk, they run half way and THEN THEY WALK THE REMAINDER.

What gives?!  It’s so wierd.  At first it was one person a few weeks back.  But as I continue to drive back and forth between my place and my girlfriend’s home, along a busy single lane street through Toronto, I’ve noticed it happens ALL THE TIME.  Not just frequently, but ALWAYS.

I have multiple theories, many which incorporate a poor proximal sensibility in pedestrians, as well as poor judgement overall, but I can’t help but feel there is something amiss here.

Am I the only one?

- B -

But what I am is a constant observer of human nature and behaviour for fun and profit.  So, during a conversation with one of my clients this morning, which involved considerable more swearing and cursing than I am generally accustomed on client calls (none directed at me, most of it as adjectives), I noticed something.  We were discussing how the ‘downturn’ had affected everyone, even safer public sector institutions, and that everyone was so gloomy these days.

Ok, interestingly enough to me, the media, both televised (I’ve lately suckered myself into watching CNN ever since Obama’s inauguration), printed (I’m trying to read more than the free commuter rag, ‘Metro) and digitized (trying to use globeandmail.com more than thestar.ca), it seems that there are two major trends in reporting.   The first was a few months back, where all that was reported on was the amount of bleeding in our economies  (People are being laid off!  Nobody’s buying anything! Sales are down! Factories are closing! Banks are bankrupturing!)  — Granted, all of this was TRUE, it was all that was being reported on. Now a few months into the recession, the news has changed its’ song to start talking about the little ‘upticks’ in the economies (home sales are up! the market is rallying! Durable goods sales are for the first time in 3 years!).  It’s almost as if the media realized the effect they were having on the economy and started to back off on the doomsaying.

I’ve just finished ‘Dreams of my Father’, and now I’m starting ‘The Audacity of Hope’, and I’m finding myself more biased by the day towards O-b.  He mentions the major institutions that affect politics: money. media interest groups and the legistlative process.  I never really realized the importance and the weight of the media until I read this (two days back) and that night I watched the President’s second press briefing.  The media’s influence is astonishing, and perhaps necessary as a part of how we think and behave on so many levels.

So I think to myself as I notice the trends in what information we get: how much of this recession is in our minds?  Back to my conversation earlier with my client, we talked about how people who have been in fairly secure and safe careers going into this recession, with no change directly in their own income, are starting to become gloomy.  People are anxious.  People are starting to tighten belts, even when their belts don’t necessarily need tightening.  Even I’ve started to feel some ‘crunch’ in my day to day life, and apart from so slower than usual design work, nothing has really changed.  It amazes me how much my perception of this recession is based solely on what information I receive from other people and the media.  Of that percentage, about 75% of that information is the media.  I wouldn’t be surprised if that (wholly arbitrary but rough approximation) statistic was the same for many of us.  Hmmm.

Isn’t the recession a result of the lack of consumer confidence?  No one is purchasing goods, businesses have lower sales, people get laid off, people have less money.  Lather rinse repeat?  So what if we found ways to restore consumer confidence?

I had an idea, and then I’ll wrap this up.  I was wondering if someone reliable were to plant the seed of hope and optimism in the ears of the population, would that start to make a difference in anyway?  America’s enormous deficit, and the deficits we’re poised to incur here in Canada and Ontario, are going to be arguably the biggest in history.  The hope?  That they will spur our economies, and our consumer confidence, to jump start us back towards growth.  To get us back out of these deficits, we’ll need more than just cash in hand to spend on crap though, we’ll need the confidence to spend.  I wonder how we could do that as well?

Here’s a FANTASTIC look at the credit crisis, animated and entertaining.  I suggest taking a few minutes to watch it; it’s entirely worth it.

I’m going to try something in my next post to jump start the economy in my own little way

See you on the other side!

- B -

So, I went out for lunch with my Mom today at Sushi on Bloor, hands down (as I claim on my twitterblog) the best sushi dollar for dollar, in Toronto. (Yeah, I said it. Bring on the counter-arguments) ANYWHO, I managed to finally, FINALLY, find that Wii Fit I had been hunting for over the past 8 months, which is in of itself a good story, but not related to this post.  She was happy, I was happy, and I’m sure my Dad will be happy to come home to my Mom snowboarding in the living room this afternoon.  Life is good when you can buy presents for your Mom

After lunch I decided to take care of some unfinished business with my gym membership, now that I am officially a member of the Jewish Community (Centre), and made my way to the humming up/downtown core of Toronto at Bay/Bloor.  As I wandered to the corner of Bay and Bloor, I arrived at my first musing of many musings, for this fairly slow afternoon.  And this must warrant my first blog post.

So here we go:

Tight pants. I see the young(er) folks sporting some pretty tight britches these days, and I wonder to myself ‘Are these our generation’s bell bottoms?’ I look, in fact up until a few years ago cringe, at old photos from highschool yearbooks gone way by, where our parents and their peers sported some marginally questionable hairstyles and clothing.  I used to recall thinking to myself that I was thankful we never wore anything quite so silly, and wonder how people could look at themselves in the mirrors during the 70s and 80s and think to themselves: now THIS is cool.

Unnecessary Side Note: I tend to have time travel fantasties, as a layover of a very boring newspaper delivery job in my youth, an active imagination, and far too little education in fundamental physics.  In these time travel fantasties, I inevitably encounter a conern about the fashion of the time.  If I am going to ‘blend in’ with my surroundings (which is key to effective time travel I’ve determined) how the hell can I take myself seriously in a bright pink tank top and leather pants?  Answer: I don’t think I can.  And this is where these daydreams fall apart.

So, back to tight pants.  I see this dude struttin pretty confidently (hats off to you) down the street wearing what is only possible to describe as spandex jeans (hiked low, which is another post I’m sure).  I think to myself two things: Is he going to ever look back on photos from a day like today, when he’s wearing his enormously baggy pants (which will come back into style in at least another 10 years) and feel full of some sense of embarassment at his fashion decisions?  And secondly, I wonder to myself: why is it in fashion to wear these tighty pants downtown, hiked low with some bum hanging out, while it’s markedly UNcool for me to run in my compression tights in the winter?  Nigel, I’m looking in your general direction and recalling a certain threat to ‘beat me up’ if I ever showed up to your house wearing those tights.

I guess I’m missing the mark with the fashion these days, which has been a noticable character trait my whole life, and I’ll probably be wearing something similar in a few months myself.  That being said, I can’t help but feel that as I stare into this inevitable chasm, I wonder what drives us through these spectacular shifts in style and ‘cool’.   Fun post of the day: As I went to find some great google images of tight pants, I was distracted by this fun post.  It makes me think of the ‘hipster’ thing, especially since I’ve been so curious as of late to the whole concept and culture being identified as ‘the hipsters’.  Maybe this is related?

Either way, welcome to my twelfth blog, and to date my most unguided and personal blog so far.  I’ll try to follow C’s advice and keep these posts short so I don’t burn out early.

- B -