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tanoraqui · 4 years ago

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I am a huge sucker for one character being chill about a situation while everyone else is freaking out, so if you’re up to it would you tell us about This Is Normal?

@tolrais asked: Sizhui genii locorum!

okay so i must disappoint bc that wasn’t actually a jesting “This Is Normal” - let’s talk genii locorum, known more commonly in the singular: genius loci, the “intellects of [the] place”. In this case: what if it was perfectly common that if cultivation was practiced in roughly the same way in roughly the exact same place, by roughly the same bloodline, for long enough, power built up in the land itself? Power and something resembling thought, in the slow way of geography? (That’s why it tends to attach to a bloodline - individual humans, even cultivators, disappear so fast on a geological scale.)

Say that each generation, the land picks a favorite to bestow its power to - one person, one generation, at a time, only. Others of the blood may access it, but to a far lesser degree. Petty effects. More if the land is partial to them. The true wielder of the land is, of course, traditionally the sect leader - and if they’re not at first, they’re probably gonna be appointed as such.

Say the powers are elemental, roughly, Say their personalities are shaped by the land itself - lakes or mountains, hills or plains - and the continuous philosophy of those who cultivate (upon) them. They choose their favorites based on who most matches what they are, and the strongest sect leaders are those with the greatest affinity for their land.

Or, lemme put it like this:

Lan Wangji was always GusuLan’s favorite, unwavering and fastidious, aloof and righteous and eternal as the cool mountain peaks. Its cool shrouded him; its ice turned Bichen’s edge even sharper. Even though he was far away in a land of fire, it flowed to him like a high-speed glacier when his father died - and he, panicking and desperate, denied it.

It wasn’t the refusal that turned it away - though it’s true, one must actively accept a land’s power; it cannot be forced upon a person. But usually, in such a dispute, the wouldn’t-be recipient dies - in a fight between one human and an entire countryside over that human’s soul, it is acceptance or destruction. Instead, it was...well, the fact of refusal. The fact that he broke, that his gut instinct - resolute as ever - was the shirking of responsibility. That, GusuLan could not tolerate. It didn’t press the issue to destruction, because Lan Wangji wasn’t its chosen after all.

There was nothing, to be clear, wrong with Lan Xichen. He was a little warmer, but still beautiful and distant. He would bend, but his core was upright and unfaltering. He followed the rules to the letter. He was even closer, physically - and in that little cabin in which he was sleeping, hidden, he woke sharply from a restless sleep as the air around him turned to welcome ice.

Or like this:

Jiang Cheng was never YunmengJiang’s first choice. He wasn’t even its second choice. The lakes of YunmengJiang - bright and warm with sunlight, loud with the chatter of market crowds, sweet and beautiful with lotus seeds and petals, all over drowning-dark depths...how could they not fall in love with the boy their Jiang Fengmian bought home? How could the water not leap to follow his every gesture, whenever he went out upon it?

(Except that when he first felt it pressing at him with not just curiosity but love, he thought of Madam Yu’s clenched fist and Jiang Cheng’s yearning gaze, and he shoved it away as hard and fast as he could.)

Failing that, how could they not adore their eldest daughter, sweet and kind and welcoming to all, and protective enough to wield words like deadly blades? Once the land is cultivated to its own sentience, it doesn’t need to be a cultivator who bears its power...

(Except it does still need to be someone whose heart the doctors don’t worry over every time she does something more spiritually strenuous than meditate. And she cannot stay, she’ll explain one day, weeping, on a boat she’s rowed out to the middle of the lake herself. If it was just a matter of love - but they also need the alliance, or Lotus Pier, Yunmeng, YunmengJiang itself might be lost - )

So. Jiang Cheng wears all his deadliness on the surface and all his joy and welcome deep beneath, and YunmengJiang is the opposite. But at least he stays. Land moves on a geological time, and YunmengJiang more than most loves all its people, not just a select family. It can leap readily to the will of someone who stays and looks after them.

Or:

Agreement was universal that Nie Mingjue was a perfect bearer of QingheNie, mighty and stern and stubborn as the mountain granite. As tall, too, some would joke. It’s traditional for a Sect Leader to wear at all times a symbol of their land’s blessing - Lan Xichen’s headdresses always sparkle with a thin coating of ice; a lightly jeweled hip flask has been passed from Jiang to Jiang in which to hold lakewater. Upon taking title and land from his father, Nie Mingjue wears a circlet of rock on his brow, hard stone crafted with his own hands as though molding clay.

Agreement was equally universal that Nie Huaisang was possibly the worst bearer of QingheNie in the clan’s entire history. Flighty where he should be staunch and stern, barely able (much less willing) to lift a blade, as flappable as one of his fans...as Sect Leader, he set a chunk of granite into the base of each one of those silly fans, but it was a public secret that the stone had been carved and smoothed by a stoneworker, not the Headshaker.

The mountains of Qinghe shook with grief on the day Nie Mingjue died, as they had for his father; grief and rage. The Unclean Realm itself shifted and nearly collapsed in several places - some of its famous defensibility came from being set into the mountainside itself, the back halls giving way to twisting tunnels running through the rock. Can you imagine how long one fighter with a saber can hold a single slim tunnel? Hidden ways, their secrets known only to the inhabitants; the deeper an enemy goes, the less likely they are to come out...

A single chip of granite launched across the room with fury can drive through a man’s eye and into his brain, killing him instantly, even with a fan trailing behind. Fortunately, it never needed to come to anything that gauche.

(It would have preferred Nie Mingjue, it really would, but even more than GusuLan, the last thing QingheNie has ever done is falter.)

So...

If the Burial Mounds had once been cultivated to a benevolent sentience and their power then corrupted, it’s been forgotten. But resentful and spiritual energy are two sides of the same coin, and the Burial Mounds yearn for company, for lives to call their own, just like any other land...but what sort of person has enough rage, vengeance, heartache, and loss to match them? Who could have enough strength of spirit to bear the touch of a land whose elemental power is death itself?

Trick question, we all know the answer to that.

Good thing we got him, too, because defeating Wen Ruohan at the heart of the volcano he commands is a bitch and a half. (He wears a jagged crown of obsidian glass and Nie Mingjue will walk away with a burn on his face from the man’s touch.)

LanlingJin’s power is invested in light. Their Sect Leaders - or in Jin Ling’s case, Sect Heirs - carry a lantern at one hip, representative more than anything (one cannot cage light.) Or, you know, they just lowkey glow all the time - but that’s not convenient on a night hunt; you need something coverable. Jin Ling would have inherited it from his father, but instead it came directly from - you know, I so, so want to say his grandmother? But I don’t think Meng Yao, Jin Guangyao, would turn out quite the same were Jin Guangshan not exactly as Sect Leader as he in canon, and I’m loath to say Jin Sect is, like, particularly sexist or something to let both be true. So, grandfather it is, unfortunately.

Jin Guangyao is jealous, but Jin Guangyao has too many secrets for bright LanlingJin. Maybe it would twist to suit him, with another couple generations dark and poisoned beneath the pretty lights, but not yet. Not even with how easily it’s gift can flow into illusions. Fortunately, LanlingJin is also the most gentle of the Great Sect Lands - perhaps weak, with how its family has been failing it, recently, in their stated intent. So Jin Ling can withstand its sudden flood even at the ripe age of two and a half.

It makes up for a little, for Jin Ling to have no memory of a time when he didn’t have the fierce, warm, bright affection of a coastal tower, busy city, and sun-drenched skies curled possessively around his soul. YunmengJiang bristles at the intrusion and mourns another loss (oh, YunmengJiang...at least it’s in accord with Jiang Cheng); and LanlingJin doesn’t like that its favorite so often strays so far. But family is important, both lands can reluctantly agree (in the manner of circling tigers, wary and territorial, thoughts not quite human.) They both want him loved.

...oh yeah, I was supposed to talk about Lan Sizhui, wasn’t I.

GusuLan would love that boy. It does love him, in its cold, discreet way. But it’s...complicated. It’s not Lan Sizhui’s fault. (Of the three, this is very much the AU least about Lan Sizhui.)

It’s the second battle of the Burial Mounds, as the second horde of corpses approaches. Wei Wuxian paces, mutters to Lan Wangji, "If I still had the land...but I don't know where it is. I can't hear it at all. I don't understand it."

This is not how Lan Wangji wanted to do this - though in fairness, he had no idea what would be a non-awkward way. He still doesn’t. Just a little louder than to be an answer to Wei Wuxian, he says, "Lan Sizhui."

"Yes, Huangang-jun?" The boy is at his elbow in an instant

Lan Wangji turns a little to include him in the conversation. He'd be gesturing if he was a man who made unnecessary motions. "Lan Yuan."

"Yes?" he repeats.

Wei Wuxian stares at the both blankly.

"A-Yuan," Lan Wangji clarifies. He draws his guqin but he can't quite make eye contact with either of them.

Wei Wuxian gasps. He cups Lan Sizhui's very baffled cheeks (except something is a little familiar...) and peers at his face, turning it this way and that to check for familiar features. He peers deeper in a way that would be stunningly rude in anyone else (it’s still stunningly rude; they’ve all just come to expect that of Wei Wuxian) and likely impossible if there wasn't a shared affinity for what he seeks - but the bond is distant, so distant. Buried, smothered, bound.

(Lan Yuan, now Sizhui, has always felt like there was something he was missing, something he couldn't remember that was just out of reach. He thought it was the concept of parents or something like that, or maybe just a natural ennui that everyone had and didn’t speak of for propriety’s sake. He discarded it, because of course he had everything he could ever want.)

"A-Yuan..." Wei Wuxian looks at Lan Wangji, wondering, smoldering with love - and just the tiniest bit of reproach.

Lan Wangji looks away. It's a terrible thing to block someone off from their spiritual power, and it's a worse thing yet to block them off from the any power of a land they may bear. One is an insult to an individual, the other to the earth itself, almost as heretical as demonic cultivation. Su She, of course, has done both today, but only temporarily...and that’s a low bar to which to be compared.

But there was too much roiling in Wen Yuan when Lan Wangji found him, death and -

(You know what, I can’t decide: Did QishanWen’s smoldering lava pass to Wen Qing when no one closer was available, ceaseless fire matching ceaseless fire? Or were the Dafan Wens sufficiently distinct for long enough, far enough, that she was already taken? Is there DafanWen in its own right, high hills with the power of growth, from dainty flowers to ancient trees, twisting vines to healing herbs?

...yes, I think so.

But I also think they were close enough in blood, had spent enough time in the heart of the Nightless City, for some inheritance. So the reason no one stepped forward, at the Yiling Patriarch’s demand, to admit to killing Wen Ning was that...Wen Ning knew he was too weak, insufficiently greedy/ambitious for things to burn and build anew; he knew QishanWen was too quenched and dormant after its defeat to the Sunshot Alliance, and he was too far away and it was literally raining. He knew that to fight back would only bring pain down on more of their people. But even so, there was no one to step forward, because the man who dealt the killing blow burned screaming to ashes.

There were sparks left in the souls of each member of the blood left alive, but not enough to burst to flame. With that last death, QishanWen lay...dormant.)

(Until, maybe, almost all the rest of them were killed in the space of about 10 minutes. That must’ve sent a couple sparks flying.,,)

- so there was too much roiling in Wen Yuan when Lan Wangji found him. Verdant DafanWen was barely settled, still reeling from the loss of its favored daughter, the best healer in three generations. QishanWen sparked with new loss and ire, driving a fever. And the Burial Mounds, whose touch was death...

It is possible, for two lands to share a host. Boundaries are a human invention; the Earth is all one thing. Pride and territorialism are taught. And even if those have set in, they can certainly fight, in the infinite space of a human soul.

And the Burial Mounds loved that child. He wasn’t raging, he wasn’t mourning (except he was just starting to, now); but he wasn’t scared of them. Why would be be? The dead things that roamed it belonged to his Xian-gege; the living were his family; this land was his home.

But the Burial Mounds’ was the power of death itself, and A-Yuan wasn’t a teenager filled with enough determination to burn down the sun, he was three years old and scared. The extremely forbidden hasty ritual to (not cut it off, to late for that) hide it, bind it, bury it - this wasn't just for concealment. It saved his life.

Back in the present day, Lan Wangji says this with reluctantly raised eyes, and Wei Wuxian nods. Because oh boy does he know about that roiling spirit of death.

There's a horde of corpses approaching; they don't have time to be tender.

"A-Yuan," says Wei Wuxian, swiping a thumb over his cheek as though to clear away a tear, and then dropping his hand. "Lan Sizhui, you trust us, right?"

"Of course?" Lan Sizhui glances uncertainly at Lan Wangji, head aching with memories about to surface.

Lan Wangji nods imperceptibly and starts to play - and it only takes a few strong chords, precisely chosen. It's always easier to break a wall than build it.

It's in QishanWen's nature to erupt but it's weak, dormant; it hasn't been home in over a decade and this boy has been trained to ice, not fire. It’s in DafanWen’s nature to flourish but it, too, is far from the earth of its body, and this is a place of death, not life.

They are in the Burial Mounds, fifty steps from the blood pool that may as well be its heart. So the volcano stays dormant the grassy hills are quiet as ever, and the raging, too-long-stifled spirit of the Burial Mounds pours forth in whirling shadows that double Lan Sizhui's height. He gasps a scream at the weight of the sudden flood, at the tearing sensation in his soul (tearing open in a way that is right - last child of a dead clan remembering; lost child of a dead land coming home.) Several other people scream and point at the family meeting that had previously gone mostly unnoticed, in a corner of a Demon Suppression Cave. What is the Yiling Patriarch doing to that Lan disciple?!

The Burial Mounds are starting to turn on their only-just-realized child, whether they mean it or not, because their nature is death to all they touch. The Yiling Patriarch is standing forth, spreading his arms, and shouting, "Hey, jackass! Get back in here, we have more vengeance to wreak!"

The cultivation world watches (Lan Wangji catches a staggering Lan Sizhui) as with a sound like the rushing wind, shifting earth, screaming dead, it pours back into Wei Wuxian.

It’s just like before. It’s rage and pain and loss and vengeance and heartache. It’s Madam Yu’s hard eyes and the way Jiang Fengmian’s face shuttered when he heard the Core-Melting Hand was in Lotus Pier, before he even shoved them back in the boat; it’s Wen Ning’s broken form and Jin Zixuan’s, not fifty feet and ten months apart; it’s Wen Qing’s soft, I’m sorry, and thank you, and Jiang Yanli’s blood dripping down his arm. It’s the crack as the Tiger Seal shattered in his hand, or was that his own neck...

Wei Wuxian might be laughing, as he greets death like an old friend. But when he opens his eyes, it’s to a soft, “Wei Ying,” on the lips of his...Lan Zhan. Mourning whites sullied with the Burial Mounds’ (Wei Wuxian’s) dirt and blood. He’s holding up Lan Sizhui - A-Yuan, their son - and maybe Wei Wuxian is closer to a land spirit than human right now, or maybe he’s just hallucinating, but he swears he can see leaves uncurling behind the boy’s wide eyes. Wen Qing would be proud - if they get out of here alive, he’ll grow the most amazing things.

#15strawberri3s #mdzs #the untamed #ficlet #man idk i just think they're neat #my fic #i'll probably collect these on ao3 later #@tumblr I DIDN'T USE BULLET POINTS ARE YOU HAPPY YOU ASSHOLE

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aal-archaeology · 5 years ago

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Ph.D. Applications for Anthropology/ Humanities/ Social Sciences (with examples from a success story)

Doing a Ph.D. is a really scary thought. Especially in humanities and social sciences. Especially in today’s job market.

Here I’m going to speak a little about my approach to Ph.D. applications, why I chose to do what I did, and how I put it all together including examples.

1. The Doubt

After coming out of my Master's degree, I already had a year of research set up, so I didn’t have to think about jobs like all of my friends I had made during that degree. I watched many of them struggle to find a job offer. Some were successful in attaining a job in Cultural Resource Management, a couple got smaller jobs in local museums, but for the most part it induced a lot of stress to have come out of a Master’s degree with no prospects.

How I imagined my future at that time: I knew I didn’t want to work in a museum, I knew I didn’t like Cultural Resource Management, I knew that after all this hard work I didn’t want to end up underpaid somewhere doing data entry.

A Ph.D. has always been something that I wanted. Ever since entering the Anthropology discipline, I imagined myself working towards becoming a Professor.

Here’s what I was told when I started to consider a Ph.D. Program:

“Don’t do it” (said by someone who already had her Ph.D.)

“I wish I had gone into something with more money, even after my Ph.D. its been difficult to find stable work”

“If you’re doing a Ph.D. in social sciences, ONLY go if you are fully funded, otherwise it is not worth the financial debt”

“Most people don’t get in their first try, that's why people apply to 10+ schools”

Coming up with a plan: After hearing this, I came up with a couple different options. Plan A: Apply to Ph.D. programs, if I get into one my first try and it's fully funded then I’ll do it. Plan B: Find a job in Environmental consulting, I could put my GIS experience to use, make some money, and then try again for a Ph.D. later down the road if I wanted. Plan C: Move to Japan and live out my weeb dreams (I’m part Japanese and have a lot of family there so this wasn’t as crazy as it sounds).

I was genuinely okay with any of these options. They all involve things that I enjoy, none of them are bad options, none of them would feel like “failure” if I ended up not getting into a program. I think this step is very important because it forces you to figure out what you care about, and allows you to be open to change if plan A doesn’t work out.

2. Choosing a Program to Apply to

I knew that I didn’t just want to apply anywhere. Getting a job outside of a PhD is already hard enough, and I wanted the school that I chose to reflect the work that I would put into it. As much as we want to think that name brands don’t matter when it comes to education, it sure as heck does help when it comes to opportunity and being selected amongst 100′s to 1000′s of applicants. Therefore, why not shoot for the stars? What’s the harm in trying. For this reason, I decided to only apply to schools that:

Had a prestigious name

Had a program that supported what I wanted to study and allowed for cross-disciplinary research (Digital Archaeology focused on SE Asia)

Had an advisor that had done research paralleled to mine (whether that included SE Asia or just Digital Archaeology in general).

I started research into programs with the Ivies and went down from there, also cross-comparing programs that had been ranked as best schools for studying Anthropology.

At the time of researching, the programs that stood out the most to me were:

Stanford (ideal because it was close-ish to home, fully funds their Phd students for 5 years, has opportunity for additional funding, had professor working with digital archaeology in Asia)

Harvard (had professor working in Digital Archaeology though it wasn’t in my preferred region, also has good funding, and its Harvard)

U Chicago (traditionally one of the top schools for Anthropology, however I had heard that a lot of this is because of “legacy” professors, and not much has come out of the department in recent years. Did not have someone specifically in my region of focus)

ASU (Also considered one of the top Anthropology schools, but funding is often fought for between students)

UC Berkeley (Had professors studying Asia, but it is a public school and also has limited guaranteed funding)

I sent e-mails to advisors that I thought I could support my research (this was probably around May, when applications are due Sep-Dec).

Hello Professor______,

My name is _______ and I am interested in applying to ________’s Doctoral program in Archaeology beginning in the fall of 2020. I would like to inquire whether you are accepting graduate students for this period, as my research interests align well with your research. I received my B.A. in __________ from _________ in 2017 and am currently _______. [Enter what you’re doing now, and any relevant experience that shows what you’re interested in researching]. [Enter something about their research, and why you’re interested in working with them/why you think you would work well with them]. I am eager to continue along this path and I feel as though your experience with _______could provide an interesting opportunity for future research. I would also be interested in working with [enter any other faculty that have similar interests, this shows that you’ve done some research into the program and the school in general] For your convenience, I have attached my CV here. If you have the time, I would appreciate the opportunity to speak with you further about the program and future research.

Best,

Full name

I also researched the financial aid provided to incoming Ph.D. students. After doing this, the only schools that sounded good to me were Stanford and Harvard.

Yeah, I know, only applying to Stanford and Harvard was a “big risk,” but this is how I thought about it:

I don’t want to commit to a Phd program for 5+ years if it's not fully funded, doesn’t have a big name, and isn’t going to guarantee opportunity after graduating.

I wanted an environment where I knew I could be happy under immense amounts of pressure (California by family, Boston by friends).

If I didn’t get in, I had back up options that honestly sounded really fun to me, so I was okay with pursuing those instead.

I didn’t want a Ph.D. just to have a Ph.D., I wanted a degree that would set me apart from others so that I could give myself the best chance for success afterward. I wanted one that, if pursued, could lead me to become a professor.

So I applied to 2 Schools.

I got scolded for this by many people... but whatever...I got in, so ha. Why spend money and time on an application for a school that you don’t really want to go to? :P

3. Applying to a Program

What an application looks like:

1. At least 3 recommendation letters:

Mine were:

Undergraduate Anthropology Advisor who has been helping me throughout the years with grant applications, etc. She knows me well, can speak well to my accomplishments. She is also a very well decorated anthropologist.

Undergraduate Professor of Geography who can speak to my GIS coursework. I’ve been updating him with my whereabouts and successes since graduating, so we have kept in touch regularly since taking his course.

My Master's dissertation advisor (he stressed me out submitting his letter 3 hours before the deadline >:| )

It’s good to have your recommendation letters come from people within the academic world. These people can write on your ability to achieve your research goals, your drive, etc. It’s okay to have maybe one letter from a workplace environment, however, it’s best to get as much street cred as you can from these letters, and this comes from Professors that know what they’re doing.

2. Curriculum Vitae (C.V.): This is important because it shows everything you’ve accomplished up to this point. This is how mine was set up:

Full Name, Current Position, Email, Phone Number

Education: University Name, City, Degree in ____

Publications: In Edited Volumes, Journal Articles, Manuscripts in Preparation

Conference and Workshop Participation: Papers, Presentations

Grants, Awards, and Fellowships:

Research Experience: Project Roles, Fieldwork

Teaching Experience

Additional Employment History

Leadership and Extracurriculars

Skills/Languages

A C.V. is a list of EVERYTHING you’ve done in your career, unlike a resume which is tailored to the specific job that you’re applying to. If you’d like a specific example, send me a DM.

3. Personal Statement: This is where you tell them why you want to be there and what makes you qualified. Why should they consider you?

Personal Statement Example

1st paragraph, introduce the program and your research interests: I am applying to _____ for admission to the Ph.D. program in Anthropology with a focus in Archaeology. My research interests are to explore [the consequences of ..... on the environment and human responses to environmental change] in [region of the world], and how these actions of the past can be visualized through the use of remote sensing and GIS applications to archaeology.

2nd paragraph, why you’re interested in what you’re doing: I learned the value of digital applications in archaeology through my undergraduate and master’s degree. [Digital archaeology] is appealing to me because [.........]. I first became interested in [example of why you’re interested in the topic/what inspires you]. After witnessing this, I began to seek out opportunities to partake in similar research.

3rd and 4th paragraph, what makes you qualified to pursue this degree?: I have many research experiences that qualify my pursuit of a Ph.D. dedicated to using digital methods in Anthropological research. [Talk about your undergrad experience, do some name-dropping of professors you’ve worked with], [why did these experiences inspire you to take the next step?], [how are you where you are now because of them?]

5th paragraph, what are you doing now?

6th paragraph, why this school in particular?: This is where you name drop the professor you are interested in working with, talk about how their research aligns well with yours by mentioning specific things that they’ve done such as theoretical approaches. What are you interested in doing that would fit well within this program? Are there any facilities on campus that you are particularly eager to work with? Show that you’ve done your research.

7th paragraph, what do you plan to do after you get your Ph.D. from this institution?: With goals of continuing archaeological research in ________ and expanding off the networks that I have established in _______, ________’s doctoral program in Anthropology is the ideal match to further my career as a Digital/Landscape Archaeologist. The Ph.D. in Anthropology at _______ allows for _________[reasons why you like the program]. Ultimately, my postgraduate goals are to remain in academia by continuing research and gaining a university faculty position. My foundation in archaeology gained in my undergraduate, graduate, and ______experiences have equipped me with a unique set of abilities to offer to ______’s Anthropology graduate program, and I look forward to the opportunity to exchange ideas with faculty and students alike.

Have your resume and statement looked over by as many eyes as you possibly can. It took me a good 6-10 revisions before settling on something that I liked.

4. Let the professors that you’ve been in contact with know

This puts you at the front of their minds when application review comes around. They’ll be like “oh yeah, this person messaged me about this.” I hadn’t spoken to the professors that I reached out to since those first few exchanges back in May, so sending this message was very valuable to remind them of my existence.

This email can be as simple as: Hi Professor ____, I hope you have been well since we last spoke. I am writing to inform you that I have submitted my application to _______. Since our last chat I’ve been [whatever you’re up to now that's relevant]. I look forward to hearing from _____ soon. Best, Me.

5. Productive Waiting

Yay, you’ve submitted! That was hard, but you made it through. Time to start diving into those other plans you’ve been thinking about. What will you do if you get into your top school? What will you do if you don’t get into your top, but you do get into your 2nd or 3rd choice? What if you don't get into any of them?

Remember that none of these options are bad, and in this world, you have to be open to change and welcome it. A Ph.D. is a really long commitment, and it doesn’t have to happen right away.

If you get in, accept only if:

It has the research you’re looking for

It has an advisor that’s supportive of what you’re doing

It’s transparent about what it offers its students

The current students are happy with the culture of the program and quality of life

The location is something you're comfortable with (for me having family nearby was a very important factor)

The money you are offered is enough to live the lifestyle you need to maintain good mental health

There is an opportunity for networking and expansion of your research outside of the university

As always, feel free to reach out with any questions at @aal.archaeology on Instagram or DM here! I’m happy to share my documents with you.

Happy writing!

-Lyss

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1-mini-1 · 5 years ago

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My Analysis on Mafumafu’s “Manjushage”

Get ready to learn way more about Manjushage than you actually need to (or want to) know.

In a weird turn of events, I ended up writing my term paper for my Chinese poetry class on Manjushage. I was wondering if the song was more “Chinese-y” just because of the music style and Chinese lines, but learned through my dumb analysis that yeah Mafumafu did an insanely good job on implementing Chinese themes into it. What a smart boi. Anyways, I’m rewriting it here in a more fun to read and more basic format.

So the first reference we have is the “land of paradise” (華胥の国, “Kashou no Kuni”) in the first line, which refers to the land of Hua Xu (or Kashou in Japanese). This land was seen in a dream by the Yellow Emperor (also known as Huangdi, and is a deity/emperor believed to have ruled ancient China in like 2000 BC). In this land of paradise, no one died prematurely and they lived free from attachment, which is a Daoist ideal.

The next couple of lines, “A land of paradise when seasons blossom forth. In splendor, knowing no end / Swayed by the scent of peaches within a waking paradise”, introduce us to the most heavily referenced Chinese work in Manjushage, “The Peach Blossom Spring” by Tao Yuenming. Tao Yuanming is one of the most prominent poets in Chinese history, and is well known for his poems about peach trees and Daoist themes. His prose “The Peach Blossom Spring” recounts the story of a fisherman stumbling upon the land of Shangri La, another paradise of immortality and peace. Manjushage references the same sweet scent of grasses and peaches in “The Peach Blossom Spring” that lead to disillusionment.

“Paradise” is next mentioned in the song as 無何有の郷 (Mukau no Sato). The Japanese dictionary Kotobank defines this as “a natural, ideal village”. So even though I can’t find a satisfactory English definition for this word (cause yeah “paradise” doesn’t cute it) anywhere, I’m 99% sure that it refers to a type of village described in the Zhuangzi, a foundational Daoist text. Unfortunately, I traveled back home for winter break and don’t have my copy of the Zhuangzi on hand to double check and quote from, but one part of it talks about how the ideal village in Daoism is small and natural, where you can hear dogs barking and roosters crowing from the next town over (cause it’s so small and quiet everywhere).

I guess that since I’ve brought up Daoism so much in this I should probably explain some stuff about it for those that are unfamiliar with it. Basically, it’s a Chinese philosophy and is where stuff like Yin and Yang came from. The whole point of it is to become one with the “Dao” or “The Tay”. It’s like The Force in Star Wars (kind of but not really DETAILS ARE HARD). To be one with the Dao you need to be balanced and go with the flow, but if you think you understand the Dao then lol you probably don’t because the universe is complicated af. Also, Daoists are really into trying to become immortal (hence why everyone in these Daoist “paradises�� I mentioned before are all immortal and chill). But yeah let’s just go with this basic explanation.

ANYWAYS, seasons are also important in Chinese poetry and are referenced a lot in Manjushage. From what I understand, seasons carry the same meaning in both classical Japanese and Chinese poetry because the Tang dynasty popularized poetry in Japan. Since Manjushage talks about love, let me explain how love is portrayed in poetry using seasons. In spring, you fall and love and everything is dandy and flowers are blooming and everything is perfect. Summer is when you’re actually going out and everything is stable. Autumn is death and falling out of love and pain. And then winter is like your heart has frozen over.

In Manjushage, the peach blossoms represent spring (because that’s when they bloom). Summer is referenced in the lines that say “Water lilies that bloomed, unknowing” and “Amusement reflected on the water’s surface”. These two lines have a crap ton in common with “The Ballad of Four Seasons” written by Li Bai, probably the most famous Chinese poet and also a hardcore Daoist. “The Ballad of Four Seasons” also mentions “Lovely lotus lilies blossom flowers” and a Mirror Lake. Water lilies illustrate beauty and purity stemming from dirty origins (the mud), and the reflections on the water are a direct reference to this Mirror Lake. Autumn is referenced in Manjushage in the line that says “shedding tears with the full moon”. The moon traditionally references Fall because of the Moon Festival that takes place mid-autumn in China and is also referenced in “The Ballad of Four Seasons ohohoho).

So all of that’s really cool and stuff but what’s REALLY cool is how Mafumafu uses this symbolism in Manjushage. Instead of having these seasons as mutually exclusive, he blends all of them together to create a new meaning that works perfect for this song. Manjushage is all about falling into temptation for a temporary happiness. He constantly contrasts purity and depravity (such as when he asks, “Am I a peach blossom? Or a red spider lily?”) but also shows how everything is a cycle. This can especially be seen when he states, “The coming of spring, shedding tears with the full moon”. Spring could not come without the pain of Autumn, but likewise “The bitterness of the peaches today- brought by a spring nourished by tears” shows that while young love appears sweet at first, it is ultimately bitter because it is always destined to fail. What a Mafumafu thing to think. This use of opposing symbolism (spring and autumn, peach blossoms and spider lilies) reinforces the strong Daoist theme in the song because, similar to Yin and Yang, there is a balance and cycle to all things.

Ok, finishing up this long rant, I just want to mention some other small things that showcase how well Mafumafu researched his stuff. Funnily enough, most classical Chinese poetry,especially in the Tang dynasty, was written about women and courtesans, so Manjushage hits that nail on the head. Also, I’m not sure if this was intentional, but the line, “Cast it all away, until dawn steals away night” shows an ellipsis of time, which is a common literary device in Han poetry. For those unfamiliar with Chinese geography, the Yellow River mentioned in Manjushage is the second largest river in China.

So yeah. My conclusion is that Mafumafu’s smart lol.

#mafumafu #rachel says stuff #utaite

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liesonthefloordramatically · 4 years ago

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Annotations for “the seventh day of the seventh month”

(Link to the fic if you’ve somehow managed to stumble on this.)

As usual, I am only annotating the big things! If you wanna know more, feel free to hit me up in the comments on AO3 or on Tumblr! There are also a bunch of little jokes and Easter eggs hidden throughout the fic, if you have more knowledge of Japanese religion/Japanese language/my other fics. If you find any of them, please let me know and I will give you a virtual gold star.

Festivals in general - “Wow, Queenie, have you been to a festival before?” you ask. Yeah, you might say that. If I have managed to capture a fraction of the colorful, weird, liminal, sweaty, noisy, marvelous mess that is a summer festival, I will be content.

Tanabata - Tanabata is a festival based on a legend about the weaving maiden (Orihime) and the cowherd (Hikoboshi). They are separated by the Milky Way and can only meet (via a magpie bridge across the Milky Way) once a year. If it’s raining on Tanabata, the magpie bridge can’t form and they can’t meet. Orihime and Hikoboshi correspond to the stars Vega and Altair, respectively. There is a lot more Tanabata Lore that I didn’t really get into in this fic; look it up if you’re interested in learning more!

Tanabata in Morioh - Morioh is based on real world Sendai (S City), which is famous for its Tanabata celebrations (held August 6-8). Morioh’s Tanabata isn’t a one-to-one reproduction of Tanabata in Sendai, but look it up if you want some visual references (and because it’s cool)!

Shrine geography - The exact layout of each shrine is different, but some common features: a main shrine building (that people usually pray outside of), one or more shrine gates, and a shrine office (which is where they dispense charms and fortunes and amulets for household altars). In case you need a refresher, Jotaro’s local shrine looks like this. Assuming that I’ve done my mapping correctly, this is the real-world analogue of Josuke’s local shrine, although the layout of the Morioh shrine in this fic is fictional.

Japan’s two-part summer - Japanese summer is split into the “rainy season” (mid-June to mid-July) and “after the rainy season” (mid-July to September). The rainy season is appreciably cooler and less humid but also...more rainy. July 7 and August 7 thus have pretty wildly different weather patterns, even putting aside geographical differences.

Tanabata wishes - A common way to celebrate Tanabata is to write wishes on little slips of paper and tie them to bamboo. Here’s a visual.

Yukata - A yukata is a summer version of a kimono; please do not ask me to describe clothing and instead look at this visual reference. An obi is the sash used to tie a yukata. Children’s yukata have different patterns than adult yukata (which also have different patterns based on gender); here’s a visual reference. The joke here is that the only yukata Koichi could find that fit him was made for a child.

Gagaku - Traditional court music; it sounds like this. The taiko drum is the big drum (which is also used at shrines, independently from gagaku performance). Festivals will sometimes have live gagaku music...or will sometimes play the same 30-minute cassette on loop over the shrine A/V system for thirteen hours. It’s fine.

The One-Month Delay - All facts offered in this fic are true and accurate. Tanabata has a really wide range of dates when it gets celebrated in Japan, including: the seventh day of the seventh month under the Gregorian calendar (July 7), the seventh day of the seventh month under the Gregorian calendar + one-month delay (August 7), and the seventh day of the seventh month under the lunar calendar (dates variable depending on the year).

Obon - A Buddhist festival honoring the spirits of the dead. Traditionally held on the fifteenth of the seventh month under the lunar calendar, but now officially recognized as a national holiday on August 15 in Japan. Like Tanabata, different areas of Japan celebrate it on different days. The Obon holiday (August 13-15, although some schools and workplaces may give more time off) is one of the biggest travel holidays in Japan.

Festival food - Each region of Japan has its own specialty foods, but there are a lot of Festival Foods™ you can find anywhere. I’m not going to annotate most of the individual foods because I think they’re pretty easy to uncover via Google if you’re interested! “Queenie, is Jotaro right about cucumber on a stick?” you ask. I skillfully dodge the question.

Wait, hold on, it’s just a cucumber? On a stick? It’s (lightly) pickled but, essentially, yes.

Frozen mikan can - Okay, I’ll actually gloss this one, since I do think it’s one of the less common festival foods in this fic. Basically, you take a can of mikan (sometimes called “Satsuma oranges” or “mandarin oranges” in the States) and you...freeze it. Visual reference here. It turns into a solid block of ice and fruit that you painstakingly chisel out with a plastic spoon. Highly recommended.

Miko - If you’ve seen an appreciable amount of anime, you probably already know what a miko is, but they’re the young women (sometimes called “shrine maidens”) who staff shrines. Here’s a visual reference. Some (bigger) shrines have full-time miko, but smaller ones tend to hire high school and college students part-time. Yukako is correct that some people claim serving as a miko is good training for marriage.

Charms - Shrines sell charms for different benefits--they tend to be made out of brocade, often with the benefit and/or the name of the shrine embroidered on them. Here’s a nice visual of a bunch of different types. Some common charms you can find at pretty much any shrine: traffic safety, success in academics, good health, recovery from illness, safe childbirth, success at work, peace and prosperity in the household, business prosperity, etc.

Happi - A type of straight-sleeved coat, primarily worn at festivals. Visual reference here.

Japanese toy guns - Surprisingly common at festivals and pretty unnerving for Americans, since they’re not legally required to make them look fake.

#DO NOT LOOK UNTIL THE FIC GOES UP or ELSE :U #I gotta post so I can link you know how it is #Queenie actually says something on this blog #parallelism palooza #can't believe this is the first set of annotations I've written since Buddhism fic! wild!

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art-of-a-diffrent-color · 6 years ago

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Pink Castles and Lord of the Rings: A Look at the Color of Fantasy Castles From a an Archaeological Perspective

(alternatively titled I Though Way Too Much About This and I Need Sleep)

Because exterior castle walls faces the elements of all seasons they had to be weatherproofed with some regularity. Traditionally this would have been done with a lime-based sort of paint which worked well to protect the stone of the building. It also had the fun side effect of being a salmon pink color as seen in the photo of the 17th century Craigievar Castle in Scotland, which underwent restoration in 2007.

As it was not uncommon for castles to be built on high points in the local geography both to bee seen and to have good visibility of the land around them, the pink color had the added benefit of making the castle easier to see. The lime base also allows the castle to breathe more then the modern concrete that many restoration projects use.

Now what does this mean for Tolkiens iconic landscape, gleaming White castles and massive stone wall fortresses?

Anyone who has read The Lord of the Rings trilogy knows that Tolkien was heavily inspired by his native landscape: Ring Forts, Barrows, Passage Tombs, Castles and Bogs all show up in the novels. And anyone who has ever lived in England, Scotland and Ireland can tell you that these features positively litter the landscape. One of the favorite games of my Archaeological Group (which is studying a Castile in Co. Roscommon Ireland) is "Mound or Monument?". Pre Norman invasion, most buildings would have been made from wood and earth, the exception being passage tombs where the dead would have been burried. But even after the Norman's came, purely stone buildings were rare and the construction was both time consuming and costly. Which makes Tolkiens stone castles and fortresses both impressive and a little impractical. I will give Tolkien the credit of simply having his castles such as Minas Tirith being built from the mountain itself instead of having stone brought to the site. One could imagine that Gondor would have exported the scrap stone to build places such as Ithilian and perhaps have sold it to other places as a form of trade. Which is one possible explanation as to how the White Tower was built and funded.

There is a question of the geology of the region. When I mentioned to a friend that I was writing this post, they expressed the idea that perhaps Minas Tirith was carved from marble and that this was possible due to it's close proximity to a volcano. Marble is formed when limestone is exposed to tremendous heat and pressure and it's color is determined by the amount of certain impurities in the mix. Now looking at the geology just a little further away from Gondor at Helm's Deep, we know that there are great Caverns in the mountain. These would either be calcium or limestone based. While it is not nessicary for a mountain to have a consistent geological makeup, it does tend to happen. While I do not know the odds of an entire mountain having consistently colored marble through its entire structure, I do know that the impuritys in the rock would vary which means that there would be portions of the mountain that might be naturally pink or dark grey. As Minas Tirith is called "The White Tower" I therefor find it unlikely that the entire mountain was mad of marble. But then again, this is a fantasy building and the rules of the real world no not need to apply.

But I find it much more likely that Gondor has a limestone base and that the architects of Minas Tirith did the same thing that the Romans did and simply lined the outside of the building with Marble. So it is conceivable that Minas Tirith would be white, and not subject to the pink lime wash that medieval castles used. The marble would need to be protected somehow or constantly maintained as it is not immune to the effects of weather. What color this would have turned the tower, I cannot say. Now this all assumes that there is a little bit of hand waving in regards to geology going on.

This is not to say that Tolkien purposely threw out historical findings. Archaeologists have only recently made this discovery through a combination of chemical analysis and trial and error. I believe that Tolkien did what many great authors have done: write what they want and pull insperation from what they know. He probably was inspired by the great stone building that he could see around him. The painted record of medieval castles show grey stone, and not the pink lime wash. Why? Because many of these castles had been left unattended and without maintenance for hundreds of years. In fact it was quite fashionable for a time to have a delapidated castle on ones property , and many of the stone building were neglected on purpose. None of the pink facade would have been left for painters to capture.

Helm's Deep however would not have been so lucky as to escape being a pink fortress. While not the main living place for the people of Rohan, (meduseld and it's surrounding building being a wonderful example of an absolutely MASSIVE Ring Fort) it is an important location to the kingdom. And a leaky fortresses that is crumbling does not match the description of the stronghold. Because the lime wash would do more then keep weather out, it would also keep water and ice from coming into the mortar of the walls and cracking it apart. Cracked walls are easier to destroy, and we know that Helm's Deep is said to be nigh impenetrable. Well what if, because it is not the primary place of habitation, it has fallen into a bit of neglect? It is true that Helms Deep would be a last resort location, a place where people would evacuate to when they have no other options, basically and emergency bunker by today's standards. Such bunkers are maintained, as they serve little purpose if they are damaged.

So I put forth to you: a Pink Helm's Deep.

(I am in no way an expert, I am still a student, and everything I have written above is speculation with a bit of science thrown in at best. This has been fuled by sleep deprivation and way too many energy drinks and in no way should reflect the archaeology community as a whole)

#lotr #lord of the rings #helms Deep #minas tirith #rohan #gondor #i need sleep #i though about this way too much #helms deep would have been pinkish #send help #after writing this i doubt rohan would anwnser my call for aid

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paranormalrealism · 2 years ago

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Kacey Kells Interview

Orville: Question 1: Tell us about who you are.

Kacey: My name is Kacey Kells. I’m 28. I was born and raised in Vancouver Island, Canada. When I was 17 I was sexually assaulted. Afterwards, I was unable to speak about what had happen to me. I was overwhelmed with shame and fear, like trapped in a bubble. I was later diagnosed with a PTSD. Since my parents divorced, I followed my mom and settled in London UK, where I lived until 2021. After a while, my counselor at the Rape Crisis Centre recommended me to write something about what had happened, saying that this could help like a therapy. At the very beginning, it was very difficult to write anything, but soon it turned to be a pleasant exercise. I was for the first time capable to explain and talk about what had happened to me.

When it was finished, my counselor, and my mom, recommended it should be edited and published, arguing that this could be useful to other victims, and could help other people to better understand the situation and the consequences of a rape. I didn’t want people to know about me because I didn’t want to be known as ‘the girl who has been raped,’ but ultimately, I agreed, and what originally was a personal diary became a book : KELLCEY.

I now live in Paris, where I am a student, and wrote a book on the objectification of women, its consequences and the benefits of women empowerment for modern society: (His)Story of Women : the Second Sex, published last August 2022.

I wrote this book because I’m particularly sensitive to the cause of women in the defense of their rights. Contrary to KELLCEY, (His)Story of Women, is more academic in nature since it tries to analyze the issue from historical, sociological, anthropological, genetic, and economic perspectives, while remaining a general audience book.

Orville: How many books do you have published?

Kacey: Two

Orville: Are your books self-published or traditionally published?

Kacey: KELLCEY was first published traditionally, but I was disappointed by the lack of support given by my publisher and when it was time renew the contract, after two years I decided to self publish. It was a good decision because I’m very satisfied, so I also self-published (His)Story of Women.

Orville: Where can the reader find your books?

Kacey: Amazon, worldwide: (His)Story of Women paperback : https://amazon.com/His-Story-Women-Second-Sex/dp/B0BB5QQ987

His)Story of Women Kindle : https://amazon.com/Kellcey-Kacey-Kells-ebook/dp/B084WRR7FK

Kellcey paperback : https://amazon.com/Kellcey-Kacey-Kells/dp/B0858TVDRY

KellceyKindle :https://amazon.com/Kellcey-Kacey-Kells-ebook/dp/B084WRR7FK/

Orville: Are you a plotter or pantser?

Kacey: Yes and no: I didn’t have any self-imposed plan or organization before writing, but I knew perfectly well what I had to say and where I wanted to go.

Orville: What makes your writing unique?

Kacey: Both books are different. KELLCEY, is unique because it’s my story ; but I think (His)Story of Women is unique because it’s both a well-documented analysis and a very personal book, where I put my convictions, and it really reflects my engagement.

Orville: What are your hobbies outside of writing?

Kacey: Reading, dancing, skiing, swimming, daydreaming, cuddling…

Orville: Who was the greatest influence in your writing career?

Kacey: No idea. I read a lot and love so many writers. Jane Austen used to be my favorite writer but I now prefer writers like Natalie Angier (Woman : an intimate geography ), and Mary Beard…

Orville: Do you have a favorite quote?

Kacey: Women’s Rights are Human Rights

Orville: Tell me about your work:

Kacey: I’m currently trying to finish a Ph.D. thesis in Development Studies.

Orville: What genre do you write?

Kacey: Until now, everything that is about the status of women in society, women empowerment, and human rights.

Orville: Is your work on Kindle Unlimited?

Kacey: Yes, it is.

Orville: Are you currently working on any new WIPs?

Kacey: I just finished my second book. Currently, I’m working on my thesis and I also doing my best to promote my 2 published books.

Orville: Who is your target audience?

Kacey: Anyone, male or female, who is concerned with women and human rights

Orville: What advice would you give a young person planning a writing career?

Kacey: Go on! Make your dreams real. Only you know what should be done and how.

#author interview #kacey kells

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newstfionline · 6 years ago

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I Took ‘Adulting Classes’ for Millennials

Andrew Zaleski, CityLab, Oct 29, 2018

On the eve of my wife’s 30th birthday--a milestone I, too, will soon hit--she posed a troubling question: Are we adults yet?

We certainly feel that way: We hold our own jobs, pay our own rent, cover our own bills, drive our own cars. Our credit is in order. But we don’t yet own a house and have no children--two markers commonly associated with fully-fledged adulthood (and two markers that both our sets of parents had reached well before they turned 30). And there are other gaps in our maturity: I don’t buy napkins or know how to golf; up until last year, I didn’t know how to change the oil in my car’s engine. Thankfully, last year we managed to throw a dinner party, our first, without burning the pork roast.

A vague anxiety over these known-unknowns is something of a generational hallmark. A Monday-morning scroll through the social media feed of the average 20-something might turn up a handful of friends sharing memes of dogs--looking bewildered, exasperated, or both--unironically captioned with something like: “Don’t make me adult today.”

Yes, Millennials have killed yet another thing. In this case, it’s something so fundamental that it may have seemed unkillable, but apparently isn’t: knowing how to be an adult.

Younger people need not look far on the internet to find popular condemnation from card-carrying grown-ups about our many shortcomings. We are, we are often told, simpering, self-indulgent, immune-to-difficulty know-nothings, overgrown toddlers who commute on children’s toys and demand cucumber water in our workplaces. But in our own social circles, such constructive criticism can be harder to find. Young urbanites tend to pack themselves into specific neighborhoods, cities, and living situations that have relatively fewer older residents. In such communities, knowledge on how to Seamless a meal to the doorstep is a dime a dozen, but first-hand experience in snaking a drain, cooking a meal for four, or operating a manual transmission comes at more of a premium. (To say nothing of the fact that a third of Americans between 18 and 34 are living with their parents.)

Luckily, the rough road to adulthood can be paved with adulting classes. The Adulting Collective, a startup venture out of Portland, Maine, made a big splash about two years ago after national news outlets reported on its in-person events. In its short lifespan, the Collective has offered up lessons, either guided or via online video, in such varied life skills as bike safety, holiday gift-giving for the cash-strapped, putting together a monthly budget, opening a bottle of wine without a corkscrew, and assembling a weekly nutritional plan. Their target audience: “emerging adults,” the massive 93-million-strong demographic group composed of people in their 20s and early 30s.

There are similarly structured programs across the country. At the Brooklyn Brainery, for example, you can take classes on how to run a good meeting or what Seinfeld teaches us about love. Take an online course with the Society of Grownups, sponsored by the insurance company Mass Mutual, and topics will include budgeting and how to deal with student-loan debt.

The sheer banality of many of these courses is their salient quality. They’re teaching stuff that people neither look forward to nor seem to enjoy, but implicitly recognize as part of being a grown-up: paying bills, setting a budget, calling the car insurance company, looking after your health. The joyless, quotidian chores of post-adolescence.

“Adulting is something nobody prepares you for, but you know it when it happens. It’s the unglorified part of being on your own,” says Rebekah Fitzsimmons, assistant director of the writing and communication program at Georgia Tech who taught a class on adulting in the 21st century in 2016.

In a bygone era, the ordinariness traditionally associated with growing the hell up was something few noticed--in the first half of the 20th century, 20-somethings were too busy trying not to die of the Spanish Flu or fighting Hitler to worry too much about what life skills they were failing to develop. That has now been replaced by public displays of what it means to be a self-sufficient human being, Fitzsimmons says. At the intersection of these two competing truths is the cottage industry of adulting, one nurtured by Instagram hashtags and built around how-to classes for hapless Millennials.

Born in 1989, I am a card-carrying member of the oft-derided demographic. How hapless am I? To find out, I signed up for the two action challenges the Adulting Collective offered last fall: one on nutrition and another focused on monthly budgeting. Via email, I received instructions for each of these week-long courses, which had me tackling a new skill or task each day.

When I hit 30, I intend to complete emerging adulthood fully equipped for whatever comes next.

First lesson: Hydrate! Never would I have thought the amount of water I consumed would be a point of instruction. But it turns out that young adults are notoriously poor judges of this particular basic biological need. The crash course in nutrition from the Adulting Collective that arrived in my inbox last fall was titled “Detox Before You Retox,” and it heavily emphasized hangover avoidance. Billed as a way to prepare yourself “before the next happy hour,” the instructions contained multiple steps broken down over five days. Step one: Get your basics in order, like eating your veggies, exercising, and drinking more water.

So one evening I stood in the harsh glow of my kitchen’s overhead fluorescent lighting--pitcher at the ready, glass on the countertop--applying myself to my first adulting lesson. On my smartphone I made a quick calculation: my weight, divided by 2.2, multiplied by my age, divided by 28.3, divided once more by eight. The answer: eight. More precisely, I needed to drink 7.56 cups of water to hit my proper daily intake.

This was only one of the big takeaways I received. I also learned that a morning drink of lemon water and cayenne pepper mixed with said water can help boost my metabolism, apparently. Like the unnecessarily complex hydration formula above, some of this material had the effect of making a heretofore uncomplicated thing more daunting. It was months later it finally dawned on me that a simple Google search could yield a far simpler answer for the number of glasses of water I ought to drink every day.

How did it come to this? Did previous generations have so much trouble mastering the basics?

“In an ideal world, we would all be followed around by this combination of our grandmother and Merlin who would lovingly teach us how to do each and every thing in the world,” says Kelly Williams Brown, author of the 2013 book Adulting: How to Become a Grown-up in 535 Easy(ish) Steps. “In the absence of that, it can be nice to have resources.”

Brown’s book seems to be largely responsible for the meteoric rise of the gerund form of the word (which was short-listed by Oxford Dictionaries as the word of the year in 2016). A revised edition of Adulting was published in March. The adulting industry itself is newer. Rachel Weinstein co-founded the Adulting School (now Collective) with Katie Brunelle in fall 2016. (Brunelle has since left the business.)

A professional therapist, Weinstein would sometimes encounter younger clients who spoke about the idiosyncrasies of grown-up life with a feeling of self-conscious shame. Being overwhelmed about how to manage money or clean out their kitchen pantry were things they felt they had to hide. “I just saw a lot of my clients struggle with life, trying to be competent in skills that we’re not necessarily taught. People had this sense of internal embarrassment,” she says.

To Weinstein, this seemed like a golden business opportunity. As a group, 26-year-olds are the single biggest age cohort in the U.S., followed by people who are 25, 27, and 24. Yet unlike previous generations, the young people of today are slower to reach the milestones usually associated with adulthood: living independently, forming their own households, having children, and getting married. “Today’s young people,” as the U.S. Census Bureau reported last year, “look different from prior generations in almost every regard.”

Tempting as it might be to identify the price of avocados as the culprit in this stunted generational progress, there may be other reasons to explain the shift. A research report released in the spring by Freddie Mac cited weak wage growth and the rapid rise of both housing costs and average expenditures as some of the principal reasons. “A popular meme, ‘adulting is hard,’ provides a humorous take on the challenges faced by young adults,” the authors wrote. “Like a lot of good comedy, the phrase has a tinge of cruelty.”

The typical adulting student is someone whose childhood was tech-dependent and activity-rich, the sort of high-achiever kid told to get good grades.

Geography plays a role, too: Millennials tend to choose to live in the centers of high-cost cities, and their earning power hasn’t kept pace with housing costs. Since 2000, the median home price in the U.S. has risen by a quarter, from $210,000 to $270,000, while the per capita real income for young adults has risen by only 1 percent during that same period. Throw those myriad factors together, and you have some of the explanation for why 20-somethings are renting for longer periods of time than they once did, as well as why marriage and fertility rates have dropped. Appropriately, Freddie Mac’s report was titled, “Why Is Adulting Getting Harder?”

But if you go further back, delaying the markers of adulthood does have historical precedent, says Holly Swyers, an anthropology professor at Lake Forest College. She recently completed a project examining adulthood in America from the Civil War to the present day. For much of the period Swyers studied, many Americans over 18 followed roughly the same trajectory as modern Millennials do: They spent their 20s figuring out life and establishing themselves financially. The script didn’t flip until the 1950s and 1960s, when the markers that defined crossing over into the world of adulthood came to mean marrying and having children.

“Marrying when you’re 20, having kids by 21, and being established is a little bit freakish in American history,” she says.

So if those Americans of yore managed to (eventually) attain maturity without the aid of online courses, why can’t Millennials?

Maybe we really are uniquely ignorant. That’s the thesis that GOP senator and Gen Xer Ben Sasse presents in his book The Vanishing American Adult. He writes that younger Americans have willfully embraced “perpetual adolescence.” Some of this is our fault, evidently: staring at our smartphones for hours on end has obliterated our attention spans. Yet Sasse also places blame at the feet of his own generation for its “reluctance to expose young people to the demands of real work.”

Weinstein, however, offers another explanation. She attributes the acute modern need for additional grow-up instruction to class and demographics. Her typical adulting student is probably someone whose childhood was tech-dependent and activity-rich, the sort of high-achiever kid who was repeatedly told to bring home good grades in order to get into a good college. “Whatever folks are really being pressured for college prep, they’re just not getting as much time and exposure at home hanging out with their family, learning how to unclog the kitchen sink, or hang a picture on the wall,” she says.

Lots of those over-scheduled and test-prepped teens of the aughts also missed out on erstwhile educational staples like home economics and shop classes, where high-school kids once learned how to darn a sock or hold a hammer; many schools began mothballing these mandatory courses in the 1990s. As a result, legions of American high-school graduates are being unleashed on the world without any basic skills. Some higher-education institutions, such as New Jersey’s Drew University, have stepped in to offer “Adulting 101” classes in things like beginner car care for their undergraduates.

The Adulting Collective doesn’t rely solely on Weinstein’s expertise for its courses, although it appears that designing an adulting curriculum is just as much of a challenge as growing up. Right now, the website contains some short posts and links to videos explaining a few skills, which is a deviation from the original idea to enlist instructors to offer online lessons. According to Weinstein, the new plan heading into 2019 is to build out a membership program that involves action challenges similar to the nutrition course I took part in. “One of the things I’ve learned as a therapist is a lot of times a little bit of accountability to somebody helps us achieve goals and get tasks done,” she says.

To Swyers, what’s extraordinary in Adulting Ed isn’t the curriculum itself, which is a pretty standard mix of self-improvement and personal finance tips. It’s the notion of branding such lessons under the “adulting” rubric. After all, classes geared toward grown-ups and their skills are all over the place. Visit any big-box hardware store and chances are there’s some sort of hands-on workshop taking place, for example. “If somebody is willing to be taught, for instance, basic kitchen skills--which people pay for all the time--they don’t call it an ‘adulting collective.’ They call it a cooking class,” Swyers says.

The difference, says Weinstein, is that the way younger adults are expected to grow older and assume our place in the world has dramatically changed: “I don’t think it’s a ‘hapless Millennial’ kind of thing at all. I just think there are things that are harder about the world today.”

Case in point: The spiraling costs of higher education. Those emerging adults are entering the workforce with massive student loans to pay off; no wonder some days all they can manage to do is Instagram bewildered-dog memes. “I have clients graduating from school with over $100,000 dollars worth of debt,” she says. “When you’re paying a mortgage’s worth of school debt every month, you’re probably going to need a little help stashing some money away in an emergency fund.”

Indeed, the most useful takeaways from my own brush with the adulting industry involved money management. Last fall’s challenge on budgeting included a chart for itemizing monthly breakdowns of expenses: so many dollars toward utilities, housing, food, clothing, and so on. After six months of following the chart I completed during the challenge, I managed to save up a sizable emergency fund of eight months’ worth of expenses--not bad for a freelance writer who graduated college with $250 to his name, and well worth the $5 I paid for the course itself.

The class was theirs. But the experience was all mine. And with my savings in order, I was freed up to stash excess cash in an additional account my wife and I hold to save for a future home down payment. With a house on the horizon, we’ve recently turned our attention to the prospect of having children sooner rather than later.

#adulting #adulting classes

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brin-bellway · 6 years ago

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Sort-of-tagged by @maryellencarter.

the last movie you watched: I don't know. I wouldn't be surprised if I haven't watched a movie beginning-to-end since seeing Mockingjay Pt 2† in a theatre. I'm not really big on video.

(Which is also why I haven’t done the favourite-movies-as-gifs meme @agapi42 tagged me in. Sorry, Agapi: I do appreciate that you thought of me, but I don’t think I’m the right person to do that meme.)

Edit: wait, hang on, I saw The Force Awakens (I think shortly after it came out on DVD), and that would have been more recent than Mockingjay. So that puts a new cap on how long ago the most recent movie could have been.

the last tv series you watched: There is...a distinct possibility that I have not sought out any TV since Daily Planet ended. Again, not big on video. Mom has been watching The Worst Witch and Merlin, usually while I am in the room.

the last webseries you watched: I know I watched Red vs Blue a few years back (think I got partway through S12). Neither my sense of the boundaries of "webseries" nor my sense of what time things happened is good enough to say if there were any more recent than that.

the last comedy special you watched: I agree with maryellencarter, re: what does this even mean.

Hmm...*googles “comedy special”*

This appears to mean a recorded stand-up act, especially but not necessarily on Netflix. It has been so long since I watched stand-up that I really couldn’t say who it was, let alone which specific act.

the last podcast you listened to: Talk the Talk, as is traditional on the ride over to an exam. (I had my accounting midterm today.) The episode in question was apparently locked behind a Patreon paywall some time after I downloaded it, but it's about Chinese puns and censorship.

the last game you played: Video game: Flight Rising. My familiar fund is coming along nicely, though gems per se are a bit hard to come by at the moment what with the new Starmap gene. Board game: Wormhole, a locally-designed trivia game (mostly history and geography, with the occasional science question) my parents found at Value Village (thrift store chain, pretty much the Canadian version of Goodwill). I later saw it at a board-game store for 90% off, so I guess it wasn't too popular. (And indeed, nothing relevant comes up when I google it.) It's okay as trivia games go, though the difficulty level of the questions feels pretty variable (and they aren't divided into distinct difficulty levels). App game: I don't play these much at the moment. Whenever Pokemon Go sends me a "we miss you, here's some free stuff to entice you back" code I pop in, redeem it, and then immediately leave, so technically Pokemon Go. (I figure there's a good chance I'll start playing again at some point, and I might as well acquire a stockpile of double-XP items and egg incubators for if/when that happens.) Actually *playing* might have also been Pokemon Go, or it might have been sudoku.

the last book you read: Hmm. My reading has mostly not been in book form lately. Probably Welcome to Floating Point. (That’s just the first one, not the whole trilogy: I haven’t finished the rest yet.) The author's habit of using "spoke" rather than "said" as the default speech marker is a little irritating, but I liked it otherwise.

Alternately, if you want something more traditionally published and/or costing money: Pyramid of Peril. (Though, in fairness re: costing money, the audiobook is now free. But I already owned the ebook, and I prefer text to audiobooks anyway.)

the last comic book you read: I don't read comic books myself.

the last webcomic you read: I think XKCD was more recent than Parhelion.

the last song you listened to: "Tried", by Assemblage 23.

the last musical you listened to: I don't really do these either. By default, then, “Once More, With Feeling”: the only musical whose soundtrack I own.

the last thing you searched online: Online, I'm not sure. I looked up kewra on Wikipedia this afternoon, but it wasn't online because I didn't have Wi-Fi. (Well, come to think of it I didn't actually *check* if the Indian food store had public Wi-Fi, but I doubt they did.)

the last outfit you left the house in: A green Girl Scout camp T-shirt (Girl *Scout*, not Girl Guide: that's how old this shirt is), brown leggings, plain white socks from the big pack I bought in Florida upon finding the socks I'd brought weren't enough for all the walking around Disney I was doing, hiking boots, utility belt††, one-litre water bottle on shoulder strap.

(I don't especially *like* camping, but I tend to wind up with Camper Aesthetic anyway, as a side effect of prepper tendencies. I never leave the house *intending* to spend the night in the woods, but I also never leave the house without enough gear that I *could*, if necessary, do so. Also, hiking boots are comfortable.)

(For the record, it has never yet been necessary. I have still never used my foil blanket. But if I ever need it, there it will be.)

the last completely unnecessary thing you purchased: I was going to say McDonalds food, but it was a post-exam treat, which disqualifies it by the rules maryellencarter's answer uses.

Mind you, I normally go to Tim Hortons--which is noticeably cheaper than McDonalds--for my post-exam treat, so arguably the *additional* $5 vs getting a Timmies bagel *was* completely unnecessary. (But I had a coupon for a free medium fry and drink with purchase, and it had been a long time--actually, hang on, I can literally look that up: it'd been a little over two years--since I bought any McDonalds, so I decided to go for it this time.)

---

†Fun prosopagnosia fact: Katniss Everdeen looks a lot like I would without glasses, but Jennifer Lawrence looks nothing like me.

††Maybe I should make an updated list of utility-belt contents: I keep finding myself wanting to link to it and only having the 2012 version available.

#when Mom asks me what I want for my birthday/Hanukkah and I've run out of ideas #I look at the camping section of Amazon and see if I can find any Useful Thing inspiration there #pretty sure that's how I found the solar-powered phone charger #(which I don't own yet but I expect I'll get it for my birthday)#oh look an original post #meme #adventures in University Land #food #(ever since the Pillowfort thing I've been noticing just how often my posts link to previous posts on my Tumblr)#(almost any post where I contribute significantly #--rather than just ''hey here's a neat thing''--#is part of a broader context of my other writings)#(and many of said writings are comments)#(the following category tag was added retroactively:)#101 Uses for Infrastructureless Computers

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kayliemusing · 4 years ago

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26: WIP Questionnaire

1. What is the title of your WIP? - Currently I am going by the title "Wake"

2. What is your WIP about? - My main character, Holly Vincent, goes on a quest to find The Cursed Fate in hopes of saving her recently disappeared mother, but she must hurry because her time is running out.

3. What Genre is your WIP? - YA Fantasy-Romance

4. What is the target audience for your WIP? - 12+

5. How long have you been working on your WIP? - I've been planning it for about four years or so. Yikes. But this last year has been the most progress I've made.

6. What draft are you on? - The first draft

7. Did you plot your WIP before you started writing, or are you pantsing it? - I'm trying to plot it to the best of my ability. I've just started trying to write it, but I fall in between planning and pantsing. I like to have an idea of where I'm going but I find I'm most creative while I'm physically writing and in that headspace so I'm giving myself lots of room to make things up as I go.

8. What program do you write your WIP in? - Microsoft Word because I know it the most lol. (I've been considering trying out Scrivner tho)

9. What inspired your WIP/how did you think of it? - I initially got the idea in 2017 so I can't remember the "aha!" moment of my idea, but I was really inspired by Hades and Persephone in Greek Mythology as well as the Moirai in Greek myths. I was also inspired lots by the A Court of Thorns and Roses series by Sarah J Maas, as well as the Caraval series by Stephanie Garber.

10. Share a song that makes you think of your WIP. - My Tears Ricochet by Taylor Swift

11. What is your WIP’s aesthetic? - I don't have a name for the aesthetic really, but in my pinterest board, my wip is heavily inspired by: Victorian London, medieval/fantasycore, starry skies, the colour gold, dark green forests.

12. Do you want to publish your WIP traditionally, self publish, post it online, or keep it for yourself? - I plan to eventually publish it traditionally, but I'm open to it also just being kept with me if I decide later on that I don't think it should be published.

13. A little bit about your protagonist? - Holly Vincent is my main protagonist- she's the character I thought of first. She is 18 years old and living within the mortal lands. However she's a little more complicated than the people around her, because she's clairvoyant in a land where magic or any kind of sixth sense is completely forbidden. Her mother was also clairvoyant, and Holly had ended up spending most of her teen years taking care of her mother who eventually lost her grip on reality due to her clairvoyance, and because of this Holly doesn't like to press into her abilities. She's quite scared of them. She's also very loyal, emotionally driven and completely altruistic which kind of sets off her adventure to find/save her mother. She's also very driven to find her purpose.

14. A little bit about your supporting cast? - Arrow is a bandit that runs into Holly and eventually accompanies her on this journey to find The Cursed Fate. Arrow is a very lost character and really struggles with understanding who he is or what his purpose is, which kind of gives him grounds on relating with Holly more than he really realizes. He's very smart, curious, and independent, and he's quite observant. - Becca Davis who has grown up alongside the throne because her father is the King's Royal Guard. She's best friends with the King's son Declan. She also has big dreams to become a Knight, even though girls aren't allowed to be. She's very determined, reliable, independent and strong willed. hardworking. She has a complicated relationship with her father, which is a large driving factor in her story, and she really values his approval. - Another character who was going to be part of Becca's story was one of my favourite characters who I'm in love with. His name is Cassian and he is one of the Fates known as a the Fate of Love and Passion. He's very bougie and loves a life of luxury. He's always dressed immaculately and cares deeply about his outward appearance. He's also very sly, charming, and playful. - Note: Becca and Cassian were originally a part of an idea I had to make this book Multi-POVs, with the POV centered around Becca's journey. I'm leaning towards keeping it part of one book as the events in Becca's journey are in the same world and time as Holly's journey. I'm having trouble mostly trying to tie these two together in a unique/interesting or realistic way. If I decide to cut them from Holly's book, I planned to have Becca and Cassian have their own spinoff. (But I'm heavily leaning towards lacing Becca's journey with Holly's.)

15. A little bit about your antagonist? - There's a couple of antagonists in this book. For Becca, there's Declan who used to be her best friend but due to circumstances (which adhere to her plotline) they have a falling out and he becomes her enemy. Declan is my favourite antagonist, because he's not *really* an antagonist but a victim of tragedy and grief. It's his grief that propels him into becoming the antagonist. For Holly, her antagonist is actually her life's fate, which is to die in her eighteenth year. Because of this, she battles a lot of illness throughout the book which complicates other obstacles as well.

16. What is the setting of your WIP like? - My setting is set in two places. We have the Mortal Lands, which is home to the humans. The Mortal lands known as Estermere is filled with vast countrysides, mountains and hills. Providence is the city where Holly and Becca grew up is very inspired by Victorian London, so big brick buildings, cobblestoned streets, big markets. The weather is often cloudy and grey, but the sun does like to peak out during the summer months. - My second setting is in the non-mortal lands that I call Aeonian. Aeonian is home to those who are not human and is filled with magic. Aeonian is filled with clear, starry skies, crystal-clear lakes and rivers, bright vegetation and just very fairytale-esque. - I don't know if my characters are ever going to explore this place, but a part of the mythology in my story is in a land called The Haven, which is home to deities and gods/goddesses. It's more brutal there, very cold and grey, sharp-looking buildings, rocky and dark.

17. One fun fact about the world of your WIP? - In Aeonian, there's a mountain called Lada's Mountain which was named after the goddess Lada after the god Ozen cast her out of The Haven and she fell into Aeonian. A large mountain grew in her place and now Lada's Mountain is known as a mountain of blessing and prosperity.

18. Do you have any faceclaims/picrews for your characters? - I do! But they're all on my pinterest board and I don't feel like posting them here lol.

19. Share a song that makes you think of your protagonist. - Holly: Oceans by Seafret - Arrow: Natural by Imagine Dragons, alternatively Neptune by Sleeping At Last reminds me of him as well. - Becca: My Tears Ricochet by Taylor Swift (this song fits a lot of the main characters in my story so I also consider it the "theme song" of my wip) - Cassian: Outgrown by Dermot Kennedy

20. Share a song that makes you think of your antagonist. - My Tears Ricochet by Taylor Swift also reminds me of Declan. It reminds me of Becca and Declan’s friendship on a whole.

21. Does your WIP have romance? If so, what is your favorite couple? - Obviously!! I live only for romance novels so it's natural that I write them too. Cassian and Becca in my head are my favourite. Arrow and Holly are cute, but Cassian and Becca are the two I'm most excited to write which is a large reason I don't want to cut them from this book because I just *have* to write them, immediately.

22. Favorite friendship in your WIP? - I'm planning for Holly and Becca to have a good friendship in this book but I'm still struggling on working out the kinks. I would also say Declan and Becca because they made such good friends, but their friendship is mostly turmoil and betrayal so it just ~hurts me~

23. Characters with the best dynamic? - Probably Arrow and Holly, even though Cassian and Becca are my favourite couple.

24. Share a song that makes you think of your favorite character dynamic. - I don't think I have another song oops!

25. Easiest character to write? - Cassian

26. Hardest character to write? - Oddly enough, Holly is someone I find hard to write. I've just begun my first draft but a couple months ago I start with writing short stories on the characters just to get a grasp on them as people and I've found Holly very hard to write.

27. Which character is the most like you? - I think Becca is a little bit like me.

28. What is the strangest thing you’ve had to research for your WIP? - I don't think I've had anything too strange yet because I've just started, but there's been tons in other stories lol

29. What is the latest you’ve stayed up/earliest you’ve gotten up to write? - I think I stayed up until 1 AM writing once and the earliest I got up was 9 AM, but I don't like to write in the mornings because I find my creative threshold is usually between 4 pm - 11 pm. (Maybe even starting later than around, around 5 or 6 pm). I've always wanted to be the writer that writes in the morning because I get anticipation anxiety when I haven't done anything but it's just not it for me lol.

30. Do any of the names in your WIP have significance? - Yes! But mostly the places are significant. Holly's mom has a significant name because her name is Asteria which means astrology or dreams, and because she's clairvoyant I thought it fit. I have the name Maeve for one of the Fates sisters; Maeve mostly means 'Intoxicating' I think, but I read on pinterest it can also mean 'evil queen' (but I highly doubt that's for real lmao) but the evil queen was the reason I named that character Maeve, because she's the Original sister Fate that is known as the 'mother of death'. As for my geography, Providence means God's will which can also mean destiny so I thought it tied in with the theme of this novel. Aeonian means everlasting, which I felt also fit with the theme, but that's it as far as names!

31. Favorite line from your WIP? - I don't think I have one yet, because I've only just started lol.

32. Is your WIP action heavy, or more relaxed? - I think it'll meet in the middle. I'm worried about writing action because it's not my strength, but there's definitely a few scenes I have planned in my head that are action packed.

33. What are your favorite tropes you use in your WIP? - Enemies To Lovers baby

34. Sum up your WIP using only emojis. - N/A (I'm on my lap top sorry!)

35. What are some of the themes of your WIP? - Purpose, love triumphs, destiny

36. What is the message you want readers to take away from your WIP? - I don't know this yet. I know I have the main idea of writing about purpose and meaning, because that's something I'm struggling with but that's as far as I know

#I'm avoiding facing the frustration of plot holes so i decided to do this instead #surveys #about my wip

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mcmansionhell · 7 years ago

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Looking Around: Common Houses Before the Second Industrial Revolution

Hello Friends! Today’s post is about the earliest American common houses, those built before the age of the Second Industrial Revolution, which completely changed the landscape of not only architecture but commerce, society, and culture.

Transcontinental and local rail, perhaps the most dramatic transformation of the Second Industrial Revolution brought all kinds of goods, including homes, to people all over the country, transforming the way Americans worked and lived. Before rail travel, most everyday houses were exceedingly small, relegated to local materials found near the site of the home and often self-built by those who lived in them, sometimes with the help of local craftsmen.

Log House in the Forest of Georgia, 1829. Via Library of Congress.

The appearance of these early houses were more determined by geography than aesthetics. They were built to suit the needs of people who lived in certain climates, with easy access to location-specific materials. For example, the saltbox houses of New England featured deeper plans in order to have more protection and room for living during the prohibitively harsh winters. Their characteristic steep sloping roofs helped mitigate potential collapse from the rooftop accumulation of heavy snow.

Before railways, most commodities, including building materials, were shipped along waterways, hence why so many cities were built along their banks. Outside of cities and farms connected by water, the cost and labor of transporting goods by horse and carriage was prohibitive to most, leaving those in rural areas little choice but to build homes using only the materials around them (McAlester, 119).

Regional Construction Techniques & Material Use

Along the East Coast and into the Midwest, vast forests provided plenty of timber for local construction. Many modes of timber construction were brought over to the New World from European building techniques. In New England, the British established building traditions of massive open timber frames covered with shingles or boards.

Edmund Rice House (1643), Wyland Massachusetts. Public Domain.

In the coastal South, the English methods of timber frame construction remained popular, aided by masonry from the large deposits of clay found in the area. These houses were smaller than their New England counterparts, likely because the mild winters didn’t require as much time spent indoors. Later in the 18th Century, these houses often featured front porches with shed roofs, for added shelter from the sweltering summers. (McAlester, 126)

Tidewater house in Missouri. Via Library of Congress.

Midland (Mid-Atlantic) traditions combined several traditions brought over from German immigrants. These traditions follow the techniques of what we traditionally consider “log houses” in that beams of wood were sawed into interlocking pieces and stacked vertically to build a solid wall, sometimes cemented together with clay masonry (McAlester, 127). These traditions spread south along the Appalachians, and because of its efficient use of materials soon became the dominant technique in vernacular house construction.

Marrs House, Mercer County, Kentucky. Via Library of Congress.

In the Midwest, where timber was scarce, early settlers borrowed frequently from the masonry traditions of Native Americans. In the heart of the Great Plains, houses were frequently constructed from bricks fashioned from the thick sod that covered most of the land - an approach that was continued well into the late 19th Century, though as wood became more available it replaced sod as the primary material for roof construction.

Building a Sod House in Western Nebraska, 1890s. Via Library of Congress.

Pre-Industrial Floor Plans

What is interesting to note is that while these early houses seem crude by today’s standards, the basic composition of their floor plans continued well past the Industrial Revolution. This is especially the case with the homes of the Tidewater South, whose floor plans persisted into the modern era.

One Room Plans

Many of the earliest houses south or west of New England, as well as houses built by settlers or those with fewer resources consisted of only one room. Of these one-room houses, the single variation is that of whether or not the entry is on the long-end (side) or the short-end of the house:

One-Room Side-Entry house, English frame construction. New Jersey. Public Domain.

One-Room Short-End Entry house, Midland log construction. New Jersey, Public Domain.

These houses were often either temporary, or were modified, extended, or otherwise incorporated into larger structures as needed. This type of floor plan dwindled away after the Second Industrial Revolution, when technological advances made it easier and cheaper to build larger, yet still modest homes.

Two-Room Plans and One-Room-Deep Plans

Often called “Hall and Parlor” (if one or one-and-a-half stories) or “I-houses” (if two stories) these plans were found in all parts of early America. The idea of a central hall was brought to America via English building traditions, and evolved throughout the 19th century. The main divisions amongst houses built around a central hall consists of the number of stories and the positioning of the entryway, which opens either into the central entrance hall or directly into either the hall or the parlor. Overall these houses mostly consisted of 2-3 rooms, with 2-story variants consisting of 2-6 rooms.

1.5 Storey Hall-and-Parlor Center Passage house in Missouri.

Extended Hall-and-Parlor house in North Carolina.

There are of, course, many variations regarding stove, stair, and front door locations - these are merely the most common. Houses built in the German tradition often feature asymmetrical facades, where the front door is on either the left or the right side of the house, like the parlor-entry I-house example below:

Two-Room-Deep Plans

These are often called Central Passage or Georgian Plans. These plans tend to be divided into three categories: Central Passage, Central Chimney, and Germanic or Asymmetrical plans. The Saltbox (one-and-a-half room deep) plan found in New England is a transitional form (mix of one-room and two-room deep styles.)

Two-Room-Deep Central Passage Type, 1700s. Tennessee. Via LOC.

Two-Room-Deep Germanic Plan House, Erie, Pennsylvania. Via LOC.

Side-Hall Plans

Our final plans for today are the Side-Hall type plans, which are derived from two-story attached rowhouses. These began to become common in the early 1800s. They were usually 2-3 rooms deep and 1 or 1.5 stories tall. The total number of rooms ranged from 4 to 8. Plans based on this layout were popular and continued well into the 20th century, often morphing into their own typologies.

Typical Side Hall. Nebraska, 1800s.

Extended Side-Hall, ME. Date unknown.

Worker’s cottage (AKA Shotgun House), built c. 1870s.

The Worker’s cottage represents a transition into the industrial age, a period that will be studied in-depth in next week’s’ installment of Looking Around! I wish you all a lovely start to your week, and be sure to stay tuned for Thursday’s Missouri McMansion!

If you like this post, and want to see more like it, consider supporting me on Patreon! Also JUST A HEADS UP - I’ve started posting a GOOD HOUSE built since 1980 from the area where I picked this week’s McMansion as bonus content on Patreon!

Not into small donations and sick bonus content? Check out the McMansion Hell Store- 100% goes to charity.

Copyright Disclaimer: All photographs in this post are publicly available and are used in this post for the purposes of education, satire, and parody, consistent with 17 USC §107. Manipulated photos are considered derivative work and are Copyright © 2017 McMansion Hell. Please email [email protected] before using these images on another site. (am v chill about this)

Works Cited:

Carter, Thomas, and Elizabeth C. Cromley. Invitation to vernacular architecture: a guide to the study of ordinary buildings and landscapes. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2008.

Gottfried, Herbert, and Jan Jennings. American vernacular buildings and interiors 1870-1960. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2009.

Hubka, Thomas C. Houses without names: architectural nomenclature and the classification of Americas common houses. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2013.

McAlester, Virginia, and A. Lee McAlester. A field guide to American houses: the definitive guide to identifying and understanding Americas domestic architecture. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2015.

#architecture #history #architectural history #vernacular architecture #housing #folk architecture #vernacular #looking around #early america #early american history

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limejuicer1862 · 5 years ago

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May 2

..scratching..

quiet now

we can hear the birds no problem one lorry on the road essential travel

then

we hear the scratching

when dark comes comes the scuttlings

flutterings outside

bats fly round our houses

inside others live and die

the fly

the moth comes lovely soft and tasteful

nothing distasteful

we saves them lifts them out the bath a dry flannel as assistance

remember that fly in the room you wanted to swat for annoying. left alone it went quietly away

night came full of sounds

mice scratching enough to leave

marks

enough to leave marks

the fly does

buzz when it flies buzz as it dies

zzzzzt

-sonia benskin mesher

Inclined to mention the halo of a mountain, somewhere I am fourteen years old. This is a mountain behind a house where I still remain, in this thought-process, every child chews spearmint gum. It is definitely spearmint gum, and the mountain is only a halo, now, this time, elsewhere. Like, I don’t know, like Mark Fisher says, this stasis has been buried – ‘the inventor of the term, a frustrating thinker’.

In the summer’s taped shut windows, without seeing flies in years.

Hit mosquitos against the wall, once observing blood left behind.

-Alex Mazey

Geyser

Soul rumbles as grumble dark bellows push their boiling fist. Hot drops, boiled rain.

Angry fats splatter into faint signs, streaks of early mournful light.

Fire waters bubble and churn chained by conventions, damned by convection. In breaking songs of earth’s heat, brash displays of prorogued grief.

Water crouches, fluid evasive. As pain it cannot be broken. Desire free to flow, hurt a haunt of generations.

So strictures die and violence will be a multiple of passing times.

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/geyser.m4a

-©️ Dai Fry 1st May 2020.

In memory of those left behind : 9 December 2019

Sun’s first sleep-breath sweets the dropped shoulder of te puia whakaari, her bones

in early mistlight, are all grace and delicate pickings, gulled clavicles of a hard dancer, stilled. Coiled tension, resting.

It is hard to recognise a haunting, in the rose-gilt of sunrise. Do you know her name? When you recognised it, did you forget to exhale? Release your living now to cloud

the pane we do not see – watch deep scratches creep across this vision. The guardians are always here, and the light oh the light may change any moment.

-Ankh Spice

The Yellow Forest

Awakening – Dry mouth burning eyes skin burn, breathe. Pin point vision echoing mission failed fission, inhale. Heavy feet slow reaction no connection – A siren a siren! Wake up stand up react retract, breathe.

Forest Walk – Dislodge move seek react engage stop! Burning embers leaves glowing eagles falling feathers floating, breathe. Listen observe – A lark hark the warning A flash a flash, breathe. Eyes open sight broken, breathe.

Chokehold – Black river dead fish foul odour slow down, Breathe. Soil on fire charcoal roots sprouting rotten fruit – Stop smell retreat, breathe. Dead of night presence sucking remaining air laboured breathing heartbeat slowing – Find the opening, breathe. Look beware – Run!

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/the-yellow-forest-mp3.mp3

The Gamdroela

Far beyond the Hottentotshuisie Mountains, a mythical creature awaits to reward the chosen one – Elected by the Bokmakierie Korrelkop, a strange elusive soothsayer, traditionally enshrined to make a wise choice – A new ruler for the remote Belhar nation to once again wear the sacred crown of Sekueb Nodmai, she whose voice still echo from deep within the Bolemakiesie marshlands – A treacherous journey awaits the young Tandpyn, Prince of the Bloekomboom tree nation, whose Lands have nearly been scorched bare by the Fiery blizzards of Macassar – Now charged with the ultimate sacrifice, crossing the Moddergat fynbos wetlands to eventually reach the steep trail leading up to Fluweeltjie – Lair of the ancient Gamdroela , a kleurvolle Colourful but powerful oracle who will Decide on the worthiness of the young Tandpyn…

-Don Beukes

The Dream

I had a dream last night Of walking thru a forest-like place Filled with earthy illuminances

I could barely make out the sharp Round edges of branches and limbs Bathed in a heavenly glow

These trees, so strange yet so familiar These giants, so murky yet so real Their aromatic odors filled my essence

And for the briefest of moments I believed to be back home among these ancient pines Until my eyes opened to the sterile white walls

-Carrie Ann Golden

Fly Away, Dream

When television broadcasting Ended after late night news And comedy shows, yellow, blue, magenta hues

On test patterns Would send humanity To bed, to fly away wistfully,

As on insect wings, To a place of dreams And endless possibilities.

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/fly-away-dream.m4a

-st

flaiku

what to us is dross is a rainbow to the fly perspective is key

-Rich Follett

Her Splash Of Veins

flutters, is still, proboscis twitch. Flutters, is still, twitch.

Splash of wheat in fields, Flutters as flywings.

Strands of wheat flywalk skin as she passes she swats the touch away.

Till as she treads down more stalks into the unmade bread of the field bunches of wheat stroke her thighs and she smiles at the bright sun of it all.

Snatches a stalk, lets it hang from her mouth a proboscis tremble in the gust of her dreams of flight above the ready to be harvested grain rises toward sun blaze newly risen

warm bread a splash of veins in full colour, breathes in her baked youth like goodness.

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/her-splash-of-veins.m4a

-Paul Brookes Bios and Links

-Alex Mazey

(b.1991) received his MA (distinction) from Keele University in 2017. He later won The Roy Fisher Prize for Poetry with his debut pamphlet, ‘Bread and Salt’ (Flarestack, TBA). He was also the recipient of a Creative Future Writers’ Award in 2019. His poetry has featured regularly in anthologies and literary press magazines, most notably in The London Magazine. His collection of essays, ‘Living in Disneyland’, will be available from Broken Sleep Books in October 2020. Alex spent 2018 as a resident of The People’s Republic of China, where he taught the English Language in a school run by the Ministry of Education. His writing has been described as ‘wry and knowing,’ with ‘an edge that tears rather than cuts or deals blows.’

Twitter: @AlexzanderMazey

Instagram: alexmazey

Here is my interview of Alex:

https://thewombwellrainbow.com/2018/12/18/wombwell-rainbow-interviews-alex-mazey/

-Rich Follett

is a High School English and Creative Writing teacher who has been writing poems and songs for more than forty years. His poems have been featured in numerous online and print journals, including BlazeVox, The Montucky Review, Paraphilia, Leaf Garden Press and the late Felino Soriano’s CounterExample Poetics, for which he was a featured artist. Three volumes of poetry, Responsorials (with Constance Stadler), Silence, Inhabited, and Human &c. are available through NeoPoiesis Press (www.neopoiesispress.com.)

As a singer-songwriter, Rich has released five albums of independent contemporary folk music. His latest. Somewhere in the Stars, is available at http://www.richfollett.com. He lives with his wife Mary Ruth Alred Follett in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, where he also pursues his interests as a professional actor, playwright, and director.

-Ankh Spice

is a sea-obsessed poet from Aotearoa (NZ). His poetry has appeared in a wide range of international publications and has twice been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. He truly believes that words have the power to change the place we’re in, and you’ll find him doing his best to prove it on

Twitter: @SeaGoatScreams or on Facebook: @AnkhSpiceSeaGoatScreamsPoetry

-Carrie Ann Golden

is a deafblind writer from the mystical Adirondack Mountains now living on a farmstead in northeastern North Dakota. She writes dark fiction and poetry. Her work has been published in places like Piker Press, Edify Fiction, Doll Hospital Journal, The Hungry Chimera, GFT Press, Asylum Ink, and Visual Verse.

-sonja benskin mesher

born , Bournemouth.

now

lives and works in North Wales as an independent artist

‘i am a multidisciplinary artist, crafting paint, charcoal, words and whatever comes to hand, to explain ideas and issues

words have not come easily. I draw on experience, remember and write. speak of a small life’.

Elected as a member of the Royal Cambrian Academy and the United Artists Society The work has been in solo exhibitions through Wales and England, and in selected and solo worldwide. Much of the work is now in both private, and public collections, and has been featured in several television documentaries, radio programmes and magazines.

Here is my interview of sonja benskin mesher:

https://thewombwellrainbow.com/2018/10/16/wombwell-rainbow-interviews-sonja-benskin-mesher/

-Samantha Terrell

is an American poet whose work emphasizes emotional integrity and social justice. She is the author of several eBooks including, Learning from Pompeii, Coffee for Neanderthals, Disgracing Lady Justice and others, available on smashwords.com and its affiliates.Chapbook: Ebola (West Chester University Poetry Center, 2014)

Website: poetrybysamantha.weebly.com Twitter: @honestypoetry

Here is my 2020 interview of her:

https://thewombwellrainbow.com/2020/04/08/wombwell-rainbow-interviews-samantha-terrell/

-Don Beukes

is a South African and British writer. He is the author of ‘The Salamander Chronicles’ (CTU) and ‘Icarus Rising-Volume 1’ (ABP), an ekphrastic collection. He taught English and Geography in both South Africa and the UK. His poetry has been anthologized in numerous collections and translated into Afrikaans, Persian, French and Albanian. He was nominated by Roxana Nastase, editor of Scarlet Leaf Review for the ‘Best of the Net’ in 2017 as well as the Pushcart Poetry Prize (USA) in 2016. He was published in his first SA Anthology ‘In Pursuit of Poetic Perfection’ in 2018 (Libbo Publishers) and his second ‘Cape Sounds’ in 2019 (Gavin Joachims Publishing). He is also an amateur photographer and his debut Photographic publication appeared in Spirit Fire Review in June 2019. His new book, ‘Sic Transit Gloria Mundi’/Thus Passes the Glory of this World’ is due to be published by Concrete Mist Press.

Here is my interview of Don Beukes:

https://thewombwellrainbow.com/2019/11/02/wombwell-rainbow-interviews-don-beukes/

-Dai Fry

is an old new poet. He worked in social care but now has no day job. A keen photographer and eater of literature and lurid covers. Fascinated by nature, physics, pagans, sea and storm. His poetry seeks to capture image and tell philosophical tales. Published in Black Bough Poetry, Re-Side, The Hellebore Press and the Pangolin Review. He can be seen reading on #InternationalPoetryCircle and regularly appears on #TopTweetTuesday. Twitter. @thnargg Web seekingthedarklight.co.uk

Audio/Visual. @IntPoetryCircle #InternationalPoetryCircle Twitter #TopTweetTuesday

-Paul Brookes

is a shop asst. Lives in a cat house full of teddy bears. His chapbooks include The Fabulous Invention Of Barnsley, (Dearne Community Arts, 1993). The Headpoke and Firewedding (Alien Buddha Press, 2017), A World Where and She Needs That Edge (Nixes Mate Press, 2017, 2018) The Spermbot Blues (OpPRESS, 2017), Port Of Souls (Alien Buddha Press, 2018), Please Take Change (Cyberwit.net, 2018), Stubborn Sod, with Marcel Herms (artist) (Alien Buddha Press, 2019), As Folk Over Yonder ( Afterworld Books, 2019). Forthcoming Khoshhali with Hiva Moazed (artist), Our Ghost’s Holiday (Final book of threesome “A Pagan’s Year”) . He is a contributing writer of Literati Magazine and Editor of Wombwell Rainbow Interviews.

-Mary Frances

is an artist and writer based in the UK. She takes a few photos every day, for inspiration and to use in her work. The images for this project were all taken in the last two years on walks during in the month of May. Her words and images have been published by Penteract Press, Metambesen, Ice Floe Press, Burning House Press, Inside the Outside, Luvina Rivista Literaria, and Lone Women in Flashes of Wilderness. Twitter: @maryfrancesness

-James Knight

is an experimental poet and digital artist. His books include Void Voices (Hesterglock Press) and Self Portrait by Night (Sampson Low). His visual poems have been published in several places, including the Penteract Press anthology Reflections and Temporary Spaces (Pamenar Press). Chimera, a book of visual poems, is due from Penteract Press in July 2020.

Website: thebirdking.com.

Twitter: @badbadpoet

Here is my interview of James Knight:

https://thewombwellrainbow.com/2019/01/06/wombwell-rainbow-interviews-james-knight/

Welcome to a special ekphrastic challenge for May. Artworks from Mary Frances, James Knight and Sue Harpham will be the inspiration for writers, Alex Mazey, Ankh Spice, Samantha Terrell, Dai Fry, Carrie Ann Golden, sonja menskin mesher, Rich Follett, Don Beukes and myself. May 2nd May 2 ..scratching.. quiet now we can hear the birds no problem one lorry on the road essential travel…

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dailyaudiobible · 7 years ago

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12/12/2017 DAB Transcript

Amos 7:1-9:15, Revelations 3:7-22, Psalms 131:1-3, Proverbs 29:23

Today is the 12th day of December. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I am Brian and it is, indeed, a joy to be here with you today in the heart of the Christmas season. And we’re working our way through the book of Amos in the Old Testament. We will conclude the book of Amos today. And, of course, in the New Testament, we’re working our way to the book of Revelation. So, we’re reading from the Holman Christian Standard Bible this week. Amos chapter 7 verse 1 through 9:15.

Commentary:

Okay. So, we are several days into the book of Revelation and we’ve been just kind of looking at its layout because it begins with seven small letters to seven distinct and individual churches. And we've moved through five of those. And we read the two remaining ones, the letter to the church in Philadelphia and the letter to the church in Laodicea today. So, with the previous five little letters that we've read, Jesus affirms the different churches for things that they are doing well and then corrects them on some other things. Some churches are holding true to the faith but have basically gone underground while others have been very engaging in the culture but have been shaped more by culture than the other way around, them shaping the environment they’re in. So, with his letter to the church in Philadelphia, it's a little bit different. Jesus starts out saying the holy one, the true one, the one who has the key of David, who opens and no one will close and closes and no one opens. So, that's how he's describing himself. So, this language, the one who has the key of David, we talked about that one when we were reading the book of Hebrews. This servant, King David, who also was a priest in the order of Melchizedek, even though he was not from the tribe of Levi. This kind of understanding, when applied to Jesus, pretty much in the entire New Testament, is messianic language. And we see that show up for the first time here in the book of Revelation, in this letter to the church in Philadelphia. So, Jesus is saying He’s holy, He's true, He possesses the key of David, He opens and no one can close and closes and no one can open. And then He tells them, I know your works, which is what He tells the other churches. Because you have limited strength, have kept my word, and have not denied my name, I have opened a door and no one is going to be able to close it. It's open to you. And He tells them to take note. So, pay attention. Those who are claiming to be Jews but are not, they’re lying. They’re from the synagogue of Satan and I will make them come bow down at your feet. And they're going to know for sure that I have loved you, which would be very, very encouraging words to this church at Philadelphia. But it also harkens and it causes us to remember some of the things that we were reading and for second, third, John, and first, second Peter and Jude. But this forces us to acknowledge and see the debate that was going on. Who were the real and true Jews? On the one hand, you have a people who were born this way. So, they could say, I’m Jewish by ethnicity. The majority of those Jews, who were practicing Judaism, did not recognize Jesus as Messiah or anything else but a rabbi, and many wouldn't even acknowledge that. So, you have Jewish people, who were born Jewish, who had been practicing Judaism in one way or another, rejecting God to his face, basically, as they reject Jesus. And you have other writers of the New Testament basically saying, those people aren't true Jews, they've rejected God to his face. And on the other side of that coin, you have practicing Jews who are doing all that they can to distance themselves from these people who follow Jesus. Because in the wider culture, the Christians are just, they’re looked at as, people who have come out of Judaism, who are part of the Jewish community, even though in most cases there were more Gentiles in a family of faith than the Jewish people. The religion itself is looked to be an offshoot of Judaism, as part of Judaism. And the Jewish people are trying to say no that's how it is, they have nothing to do with us. And this language that we find in that little letter to the church of Philadelphia seems to affirm that idea. And it's a big idea. Because what we see taking shape here is that God is forming a new family, a new people. And you come into this family, this door that can't be shut, through Jesus, and are welcomed into this new thing that God is doing. And it doesn't matter your ethnicity. It doesn't matter whether you're a Jew or a Gentile. So, we can see some of the conflicts that we've been looking at throughout most of the New Testament finding their way here into the book of Revelation. And Jesus is affirming the church of Philadelphia, in spite of all the marginalization and conflict that they been enduring both from the Jewish community and from the culture at large. They are staying true. They are staying engaged. They are bearing witness to the gospel of Christ, and they can walk through this door that no one can close. And then He encourages them further – ‘because you have kept my command to endure, I will also keep you from the hour of testing that is going to come over the whole world to test those who live on the earth. I am coming quickly. Hold on to what you have so that no one takes her crown.’ What we can't say for certain about this is, is it planet Earth? That's what it seems to be written as. Or is it the world as they understand it? Is this a planet earth tribulation or will this testing take place in the Roman empire or simply the known world? Scholars continue to debate that. And what kind of tribulation are we talking about - a spiritual one, a physical one? And how will the church of Philadelphia be spared? On the one side, you have those who are like, Jesus will come back and they will be spared. He tells them He's coming quickly. So, He will come. And this has been called the rapture, which is a word that is not used in the New Testament. Which is not to say that the concept can’t be formed. It's just to say that word is used in the New Testament. Or were they going to be spared spiritually, protected spiritually, but perhaps would have to endure physical hardship? Because so much of the New Testament deals with endurance, and suffering, and staying true in spite of it. So, like, even John, in John's Gospel, when we have the high priestly prayer of Jesus. Jesus says to the Father, I'm not asking you to take them out of the world, I'm asking you to protect them from the evil one. And, so, this leads others to believe that this is about spiritual protection that takes place in our union with Christ. But no matter what this looks like, Jesus tells them if you're victorious, if they will hold on, if they will endure, they will be made pillars in the sanctuary of God and they'll never go out again. The name of God will be written on them in the name of the city, the new Jerusalem, that will come down out of heaven. And we’ll hear more about that later. And then we get to the final of these seven little letters, the letter to the church at Laodicea. And Jesus introduces himself by saying, ‘the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the originator of God's creation says.’ So, this faithful and true witness language has been a theme to all the churches. What are they doing with the light that’s on the lampstand? What is their witness to Christ saying? And then He says that He's the originator of God's creation. That has been debated. Was He saying that He was the originator of the creation of the world as we know it? Or is see He originator of a new creation, this new family of God, where all are welcome through faith and not because of the origin of their birth? There are commentators and scholars on both sides of that. But getting into the letter, we see that the note to the church in Laodicea is more pointed than any of the other letters. As Jesus said to other churches, He tells them, I know your works. But what their works are is that they are neither cold nor hot and he wishes that they were cold or hot, but because their lukewarm and neither cold or hot, he's going to spit them out of his mouth, which probably under any circumstances isn’t a good thing to be hearing from Jesus. So, it's not a good thing. The metaphor of hot or cold or lukewarm has also been a point of debate. So, traditionally, you know, if you're on fire, if your hot. Right? Then that's a good thing and if you're cold then that's not so much a good thing. And if you're lukewarm you’re a mixture of the two, that's even the worst thing. And I basically grew up here hearing it like that. But there are scholars who would say, no, this is rooted to the place of Laodicea itself, the situation of the city itself. It was a good place for a city, in terms of geography, but they didn't have a good freshwater supply. So, they had to a pipe it in. So, on the one hand they were getting some of their water supply from places that had hot springs and then maybe they were getting their water from other places that had, you know, fresh, cold, clean, life-giving water. But by the time it piped its way to another city it wasn't cold anymore, it was it was lukewarm. And, so, it wasn’t a palatable. The hot water coming in had become lukewarm. The cold water coming in had become lukewarm. In other words, it had gone from its original state to this kind of lukewarm, less palatable, less usable form, which would more accurately describe the state of the church at Laodicea that Jesus is speaking of. And Jesus assessment of the church at Laodicea contrasts, pretty sharply, with their own view of themselves. Jesus says, ‘because you say; – so, like, this is their assessment of their condition – ‘I'm rich, I have become wealthy and need nothing.’ So, they think they're doing pretty good. And Jesus is telling them, you don't know that your wretched, pitiful, poor, blind, and naked. So, they seem to be about as blind to their situation as we often find ourselves to be. They found a way to be economically prosperous, assimilating into the culture, and probably reaping the benefits of that and they think they're doing pretty good. And Jesus is advising them that they need to get their gold. Right? So, they need to get their wealth from a different source. Him. They should buy gold from Him because it's a different kind of riches. They may think that they have material wealth and that they're doing pretty well, but they’re actually blind and poor spiritually and they need to come to Jesus where they can get true wealth. So, Jesus is being pretty pointed toward the church in Laodicea, but He does have a kindness. He tells them, look, I rebuke and discipline those that I love. So, He's telling them, even though we’ve got some pretty serious problems here, and you’ve put yourself in pretty grave danger, I wouldn't be telling you this if I didn't love you. So, He tells them, listen, you've got to be committed and you've got a repent. Which brings us to one of the famous passages in the book of Revelation. ‘Listen, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and have dinner with him and he with Me. And if you're victorious I will give you the right to sit with Me on my throne, just as I also won the victory and sat down with My Father on his throne.’ I kind of always grew up thinking, behold, I stand at the door knock, this was language used to describe a person coming to Christ. But we can see that this is more language to the people who had kind of lost the plot. They had heard the good news but had become lukewarm. So, they started out one way and then had become another. But Jesus was saying that He still loves them and they can come back, they can repent, they can recommit themselves. He's been standing at the door and knocking and if they'll hear His voice that will be opening the door and He’ll come, and they can be victorious. So, that that gives us a little bit of a look at these seven letters to seven churches that give us our introduction into the book of Revelation. And I have to tell you, every word of this book has been looked at from an academic and scholarship and theological perspective for so long that we could spend a good portion of our lives trying to unravel all of the nuances. Even in what we just talked about today, there are many cross-references to many places in the Bible, many places in the Old Testament, like the book of Ezekiel or the book of Daniel or the book of Isaiah, that provide the backdrop for all of this. So, there's no way to touch on everything. What I'm trying to do is just keep us on track because most biblical scholars would agree the book of Revelation is one of the more challenging books to follow. So, I'm trying to keep us moving forward and pointing out some things that you can dive in as deep as you want to go in your personal walk. Because a lot of people think a lot of things about this book and we would do well to pay attention to what it is actually saying and what it is actually bringing up in us and inviting the Holy Spirit into that and following where the Holy Spirit leads us in that.

Prayer:

So, that's our prayer Father, that Your Holy Spirit would come as we continue to move forward day by day toward the end of the year. And as we watch those days dwindle down to where we only have a few weeks left, we invite You to speak as strongly to us now as You have since the beginning of the year as we've gone through the entire Bible and lead us into all truth as You have promised. Come, Holy Spirit. We pray in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is the website. It’s home base. It’s where you find out what's going on around here.

Several things are going on around here and they all relate to the holiday season that we’re in.

You can call in your holiday greeting for the annual Daily Audio Bible family Christmas, which is our kind of Christmas party that we have as a community each year, as we go through the Christmas story, and hear each other. It's a beautiful thing. So, you can call in your holiday greeting by using any of the prayer lines that we have 877-942-4253 is the number here in the United States. If you’re in the UK or Europe 44-20-3608-8078. If you're in Australia or that part of the world 61-3-8820-5459. The only rule about this is don't combine a holiday greeting and a prayer request in the same call. Make them separate. We’ll only be doing this for a couple more days. So, don't procrastinate.

Another thing going on is the Daily Audio Bible Christmas Box for 2017, chock full of goodies as all of the Christmas Boxes are. And you'll find things that you’ll want to keep in things that you'll want to give away in the Box. You can get them now at the Daily Audio Bible shop at dailyaudiobible.com. And if you're in the United States, there's definitely still time to get them in time for Christmas. If you're outside the United States, not as much, not so sure. But you can certainly still order a Christmas Box. So, grab one while we still have them.

Also, early registration for the More Gathering that is coming up this April, our annual women's conference is open. And we have early registration pricing for that. Makes for a great gift. Hope you can come, if you're a woman that is. Hope you can come. All the details about the More Gathering are at dailyaudiobible.com in the Initiatives section or you can just go to moregathering.com and that'll take you straight there.

Also, in the Daily Audio Bible shop is the Daily Audio Bible journals, along with all of the Black Wing pencil stuff that we have that makes for a great kit, a great thing to be carrying around and writing down what's happening in your life as you Journal your way through the Scriptures and Journal your way through life in a year. And we have a number of bundles that make for great gifts or just a great opportunity to set yourself up for the new year. And those can be found in the Daily Audio Bible shop, in the lifestyle section. So, check that out.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible here, as we approach the end of the year, I can't thank you enough. Thank you for your partnership. We wouldn't be able to do what we do if we didn't do this together as a community. So, thank you. There is a link on the homepage at dailyaudiobible.com. If you prefer, the mailing address is PO Box 1996 Spring Hill Tennessee 37174.

And, as always, if you have a prayer request or comment or holiday greeting right now, 877-942-4253 is the number to dial.

And that's it for today. I’m Brian I love you and I'll be waiting for you here tomorrow.

Community Prayer Requests and Praise Reports:

Hi this is Bonnie from Virginia. This message is for Joyce in California. I heard your story, which is similar, somewhat, of mine. As my dad also left me near the temple to die but somebody found me and started taking care of me. It’s a long story, so, I do not want to share, but I wanted to encourage you not to give up on your test. As you mentioned, you failed twice, and you are attempting to do the test on December the 29th and 30th. If you don’t get through that time also, I would ask you not to get discouraged and be strong and pray to God. Maybe God may have some other plans for you. And I would encourage you to read Jeramiah 29:11. That verse has really helped me because I am also doing the job which I was not even thinking or didn’t even like before when I started. But God has plans for everyone and now I enjoy doing this job. I do the ___ job, which is very difficult but God is helping me. So, I would encourage you to pursue what God has planned for you. Love you sister. Bye.

Hello. This is Sharron. Not Sharron in California, not the original Sharron that called before. So, I’ll call myself The Rose of Sharron. I’m calling asking for prayer for myself and my family. We’re going through a tough time right now, financially. My daughter…I have 2 daughters and 2 sons…and they are not living to their potential. So, I pray God’s grace and I pray for His presence in our lives, that they all would find church homes. And love you guys. This is my first time calling, but I’ve been listening for three years. So, I love this podcast. Thank you. Bye-bye.

Hi Daily Audio Bible. This is Beloved from Texas. I’m a 4 year listener and I just want to say thank you, Brian and Jill and all the others behind the scenes at DAB. Thank you for all that call and who agree in prayer. I’ve never called in before. I’m requesting prayer for my son. He’s a prodigal. He has a great calling on his life and I’ve praying for his great destiny for years. He walked away when he was 18 and he’s been through a lot of hurt and pain and rejection. And the enemy just used it to distract him from what God has for him. He is mighty warrior in the making. I’m grateful what the Lord has taught me in these 17 years to be fighting for my son, learning about spiritual warfare and drawing close to the Lord. But I’m praying for my son and hoping that you would pray with me. His name is Michael. And I’m asking my DAB family to lift him up. And not just him, but for all the prodigals to come home. I know as prodigal parents we’re all hurting. And, so, I pray the harvest of the prodigals. I pray that you would just agree with me in prayer for their destiny in Christ. I love you all.

Hello Daily Audio Bible. This is Duane from Wisconsin. All praise and glory to God. I’m calling in for Joyce in California, who called in, who is going to medical school and has some exams coming up at the end of the month. Joyce, I just wanted to say to you we are calling in for encouragement for you. My wife is a nurse. Her daughter is a nurse our daughters husband, our son-in-law, is a doctor. So, we know how hard it is to be in the medical field. So, it is amazing that you chose this profession and that you are attempted and to get into that. And you will succeed. I don’t doubt that at all. So, I just wanted to call in and give you encouragement, Joyce, to give you comfort, peace. And you can't be a disappointment. All my fellow Daily Audio Bible, fellow members here, we are all lifting you up Joyce, we are all with you. You can't disappoint us at all. You can’t disappoint God at all. So, I just wanted you to know that is a blessing that you're going into that field because I assume you want to help people and I have no doubt that you will pass your exam. You’ve forgiven your parents, what an uplifting story that was. Thank you for that story, Joyce. So, I just want you to know that we are lifting you up and we will be with you. And, please, keep us informed on those exams and we’ll keep you in prayers, always. Calling in for Patricia in Minnesota also. She wanted to just call in about her son Tony. He is taking a trip to Vegas. We want you to know, Patricia, that we pray that the Lord be with your son and that he will stay on the right side and be safe. So, like to lift that up along, independent on him ___ with your husband and your marriage. Lifting that up as well. Lifting this all up. In Jesus’ name. Amen. God bless and love you.

Hi. This is Victoria S. I’m just calling to pray for some of the DABbers. Sorry I haven’t been able to call. My calls have been getting blocked, but I just thank God that tonight that God has allowed it to be unblocked so that I could reach Amy. Oh my God, Amy, my heart goes out to you. You’re beautiful mom that somebody hit. The Bible says, in the last days the heart of many will be wax cold. But we are faithful. God is faithful and God is able. We need to pray to God that they find who it is. But I’m sorry that your mom died. I pray that God would be with her, that she’s at peace now, and not in pain. Lord, in the name of Jesus, You touch Amy and You touch her Lord, in a mighty and special way. You touch that family. Oh, Father, in the name of Jesus, You rebuke the enemy on every hand and cast them out of their lives. Oh, Father, we pray in the name of Jesus. Lord, You have Your way Father, in the name of Jesus. Lord, I also want to pray for our sister on last night. She was going through with her husband and was going through a divorce. I don't remember her name, but Lord, I ask you to touch her Lord. I ask You to touch her and I ask you to touch that marriage. You touch that husband Lord. You touch that heart and you open up his blinded eyes and let him see what he has in the wife that he has. Lord, You have Your way. I thank You for touching the DABbers. Touch those that need You Lord. Touch those that feel like they are about to give up. Touch those that feel like they need a man Lord. You bless them and show them the man that You have for them. Oh Lord, in the name of Jesus. Lord, You touch my sister Gloria and You open up doors on her mom Lord. You bless her that her mom be able to come and spend Christmas with her and that she’ll be able to be with her permanently. Lord, You have Your way Father. I thank You for this broadcast and I thank You for Your people. I give You the glory and the honor and the praise. In the mighty name...

Hello Daily Audio Bible family. This is Nathan from Bloomington Illinois. I know it’s been several months before I called in but I listen every day and I pray along with most of you guys. So, I just want to let you know. When I first started listening to the DAB, which was…I don’t know…several years ago….six of seven years ago…my goal was to just get through the Bible. I just wanted to read through the bible and be done. And, so, I was skipping the prayers and all those kind of things. But, you know, I reached my goal. I got it done. And then I still felt just as empty because I felt like I did it for the wrong reason. It's December. It’s already…this year’s almost over and…which means we have a choice. December 31st rolls around to January 1st and are we going to stick with it? Are we going to continue on? Because this isn’t just about getting through the bible in one year. It’s about community through the bible. And, I don’t know about you all, but I’m going on. I don’t know how many times I’ve been through the bible. I don’t even count, but this is family and I’m here for the family. So, that’s my word for today. I hope to see around in the middle of the year 2018. So, have a great day. Make it a great day.

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automaticstudentmiracle-blog · 7 years ago

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•IEW, should or shouldn't be delicate at all?• Hi, I'm Mentari. I'm an alumni of 16/17 KL-YES Program to the USA. I was hosted in Belleville, Illinois. Through this writing, I want to happily share my personal-experience-based stories regarding to the most awaited moment of all exchange students all over the world. Exactly. International Education Week. Happy International Education Week for all exchange students! *cheers* First of all, today was a year ago the kick-off night of IEW was held, November 13, 2017 in one of our mate's host family's house in Shiloh, Illinois. My IEW was started with the International Cuisine Night. In my cluster we consisted of fourteen exchange students who came from various countries (Indonesia, Israel, Kazakhstan, Kyrgystan, Moldova, India, and Armenia), and we were all organized by one very cool Placement Organization named World Link Inc. Why do I say so? First, I'm not paid to say that, because that's legit true. Second, because World Link has successfully helped me trace out my development(s) during the program. For me, especially Cyndi (my local coordinator) and Kristin--a huge and hard shoutout to them two--who have worked the best out of them to take care of all of us until the very last day of our presence in the US. Anyway, that International Cuisine Night, though, was taken in so much energy and synergy to introduce each of our countries through cuisines. The hostess (Cyndi & Nickie) also cordially invited each of our host families to celebrate and try our international cuisines for free. Yes, F R E E. Don't you wonder what I cooked in that time? Inhale. Exhale. Ayam Kecap or Chicken Shimmered in a Sweet Indonesian Soy Sauce. Seriously. This idea started off of my thought about what mom's food I missed the most in that time. Something sweet, but not too sweet. Something spicy, but not too spicy. Then popped up in my head, that, Ayam Kecap. A week before that night, I seriously surfed on the internet to figure out the closest recipe like my mom usually has back home. Boom! I found it! You can access the recipe here for the sake of your reference in case you have no idea at all: https://www.google.co.id/amp/s/anotherdish.com/2013/08/25/chicken-simmered-in-a-sweet-indonesian-soy-sauce-ayam-kecap/amp/ I brainstormed hard and I finally left to go to one Asian market in St. Louis, Missouri, named Jay's Market which was 20 minutes drive from my home, to buy some ingredients and stuffs. I got pretty much some things, such as Indonesian soybean sauce (Kecap Manis ABC) and shallots (bawang merah). In that time I did realize, I could be happy over simple things like this. Kick-off night: checked. Next stop was my school to present Indonesia through some speeches in presentations. Honestly though I only did three presentations during the IEW, which didn't reach my satisfaction point yet. But it was okay. I did my first presentation in my Public Speaking class, the second one in History class, and the third one in the library which was open for anyone at school to see. Everytime I initiated to do the presentation, I always wore Indonesian typical apparel, such as, or such as simple as, batik blazer, batik skirt, and kebaya. I spent relatively 25 minutes each presentation to talk and discuss about Indonesia with the audiences, also did I hold a little Q&A game with them after the presentation and one who could answer my question(s) right would get a piece of Indonesian money (Rp2,000,-). You know what, most of them got mad because of the money I gave them away, like, the typical question for them was,"OMG, are you sure you give me your money? Do you still have money after this? I just want to make sure you're good after all," which was followed with tender hugs afterward. I assume they said that because they thought Indonesia money got a lot of 0s and Rp2,000,- equaled to several hundreds US dollars, which was not true *lol*. Rp2,000,- is not even equivalent to $1. I explained all to them and they thanked me for such beautiful and remarkable gift from Indonesia. I spent the last day of IEW in a huge celebration of it in my school library which also invited other exchange students from other schools to collaborate created an International Day of The Week at school. I wore kebaya in that day, and my other friends also wore their beautiful traditional clothes. The school managed some stuffs so the exchange students could also display their nation-related stuffs during the event. I displayed my ID card (KTP), school ID card (kartu pelajar), Indonesian coins (receh), and some of Indonesian utensils (Pilot, Standard, pensil 2B, etc) in one medium size display window (etalase)--of course because I don't want anyone steal any of my 'traditional' belongings. Please no. Literally, prior to the IEW, I had cooked pretty much some meal for my host family at home and for a couple times brought the meals to school for lunch. Do you know what it was? Indomie. I mean, what else can typically depict Indonesia in a very quick and simple way? Indomie. Did I but the Indomie though? Nope, I didn't buy it, but my host dad did. He surprised me in my sixth week there by putting a box full Indomie he bought from Amazon in front of my room door. Yea, it was cute. And I miss him now. I'm about to cry. No. Anyway, let's summarize all these into dos and don'ts during the IEW for you whom are planning to manage the schedule, or still collecting up all the guts to conduct the presentations through some speeches in front of the mass. Let's start from the don'ts--so you have some pictures of bad things that'd happen if you do these. 1. Put information you don't specifically know or understand about Indonesia into your slides. It's such a big NO. Let's take one case as an example. You put in your slide, for example, that Indonesia got the 2nd big economy in the world, and then you don't further explain about it which left the audiences be empty about your information. Anyway though, it's somewhat unnecessary because people can basically google it by themselves and spot it right there. 2. Attach irrelevant pictures. Isn't it funny when you read about the traditional foods but then appear one picture of an Indonesian president in one same slide? It's silly. Please don't do that. 3. Miscalculate your presenting duration. I'm always cautious enough in determining the right amount of time for me to present the presentation in each class I targeted. Traditionally, when an exchange student has booked one special day to the teacher in one class to present about his/her country, class must not undergo casual teaching activity. So, don't disappoint your teacher because you say to him/her that you'll present for 15 minutes but in fact you go for another 15 minutes, because just in case she/he might plan some activities later after your thing. 4. Stuff up your slides with general information. Please, you come abroad to make Indonesian known in special way. Don't give information they should've known just by one simple click away on Google. Be specific and detail and original. 5. Skip the subjects. Tell me you aren't going to, or planning to do this, are you? Please don't let them left still wondering about some subjects that are attached in your slides but you get rid to present it just because you don't memorize the speech or information or explanation about it. Phew. Let's straight go to the dos stuffs. 1. Be knowledgable about your country! You are going to present about Indonesia, so you should learn more and more about it first before you speak about it. Am I right or am I right? Preferably don't use text or note while you're presenting, but this is actually up to you. 2. Pictures and videos can furnish your presentation for sure! Beautiful and original pictures or videos can also help you promote Indonesia to them. Your everyday pictures with your family, friends, teachers back home can be definitely attached into your slides to amaze the audiences (but please, not your selfies). You can also download some of the videos from Wonderful Indonesia on YouTube to be played. For example this one: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TT8J3wUX_YY. Ideally you don't need to attact a life-long 101 hours video, you just need like 2-4 minutes long videos therefore it also doesn't corrupt your presenting time. 3. Make agenda for when and where you'll go to present (and manage the right time with the teachers if you're planning to present at classes)! I used to have a small agenda note to create a timeline of when and where and what I'll present later, and how many audiences I expected to come to watch. Just don't ruin your vibe just because you don't manage your agenda correctly. Ugh, what a disaster. 4. Input the general points, assess, through speaking, the specific matters. You may input some general points only to outline your explanation, but please be specific when you speak or talk about it. Because through your explanation, they start getting to know how Indonesia is. 5. Be in right order. You aren't going to go from foods session to the geography part of Indonesia, are you? 6. BE CONFIDENT AND CLEAR. Your voice, posture, body languages, stage manners, and all. Please manage as best you can as possible. They'll see Indonesia through you, and they'll understand Indonesia through your eyes. So please be you and original. Wow. What a list. I hope you guys feel a little bit helped and can take some good points from what I've written here. And I wish you a very successful and lit IEW. Break a leg!

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daggerzine · 5 years ago

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Kristin Hersh interview by Dina Hornreich!

Thank you for pouring your heart and soul to give us the music that understands life's complexities uniquely from a woman's perspective (often angry -- not a culturally sanctioned "feminine expression"). I know my life wouldn't be the same without you playing prominently on that soundtrack over so many years. I look forward to hearing you perform on 9/10 at the Hi Dive in Denver. If I can dig up my Ryko reissue of In A Doghouse, maybe you will sign it for me? (j/k) <3.

Absolutely! Thank you for having that goofy record. Can’t wait to meet you in person :)

You have taken a very proactively bold and admirable stance against making music for the sake of commerce and the industry -- opting for the Creative Commons approach with CASH music. Is there a singular experience or sequence of events that informed this approach (or perhaps a lingering emotional context) that informed such outspokenness? For some background, you should know that I remember when "Your Ghost" was fairly ubiquitous as a semi/quasi mainstream success in a time when "the industry" was responding to Nirvana and REM's unexpected stardom as they searched for the illusory "next big thing" <insert sarcastic eye rolls here>.having a variety of implications for reluctant rock stars who avoid "sell-out" stigmas among other impetuous punk rock betrayal ethos.

Everyone is born musically literate. In a consumerist culture, some of us lose touch with our own visceral response and assume marketing to actually be our opinions. This dilutes our impression of real music, and that allows us to go limp in the face of an insult like the corporate recording industry. If we knew quality deeply, we’d reject the boredom of radio friendly, of style over substance, of women as fashion things. Music as a commodity, women as a commodity...it’s not a truth we’re born with. It’s not a truth at all. So I live and work that way: I’ll never turn my back on women or music, I’ll never put style over substance.

I know you -- like me and so many others -- have been on a journey of recovery from trauma and other related mental health struggles. Can you explain how your music and/or the creative process has contributed to your emotional/psychological well being? In other words, can you put in your 2 cents on the recurring suggestion that there's a correlation between those (like us) who are drawn to the the indie/punk/alternative (i.e. counter-cultural creative types of) communities and the fact that we are facing these struggles (i.e. is there a link between healing and the creative process perhaps in a spiritual/metaphysical sense)? Since so many addiction/suicide issues plague our communities with tragic outcomes (most recently, David Berman; but also like Elliott Smith, Nick Drake, etc.)...

Real is intense but it’s also...real. There’s no escaping it. Joy is just as available as sadness on this plane, but when people like us feel these extremes within a construct we played no role in creating, it causes pain. We are the thinkers and artists, but those processes are diminished in a society which values money and attention over impact and depth. So think, be artful, be everyone and turn away from the co-opted, monetized versions of these, whoever you are.

I don’t think the diagnoses and medications we receive are helping. We don’t want to be marginalized, we just want to live the truth.

Can you comment on any progress you have witnessed given so many changes in the music industry since you started over 30 years ago? I am referring not just to formats (vinyl, cassettes, CDs, downloads) but the overall climate for traditionally "less visible" musicians (gender, culture, or other issues) and their relationship with their audience/fans given how the online communication piece has altered the nature of music (or any form of streaming/downloadable media) discoverability and accessibility in terms of the sense of community or "scenes" (for me, it was "back in the day" of record stores, punk rock clubs, left-of-the-dial/non-commercial media outlets, etc.).

I do love scenes; they can be very powerful in the enthusiasm they engender that is outside of the mainstream. And outside of the mainstream is where you find culture developing. We just need to look for humanity now, not geography. Humanity over demographic would be good, too: gender is superficial, so is race, so is age. If we empower ourselves through the superficial, anyone can take our power away.

Are there any musicians, writers, film/tv-makers, painters, photographers, etc. that you are particularly interested in and/or inspired by lately?

I’m still searching through time, genre and discipline to find my teammates. I’m inspired by the homeless guys who live down the street and by our pet snakes who live in the kids’ room, by weather, my kids and the cashier at the drugstore. I don’t see artfulness as separate from life, in other words, which sounds way more pretentious than just answering the freakin question! But it’s true.

And I walk my talk: I don’t need people to buy my records, I want them to play their own music, which is the perfect opportunity to not suck. If there had never been money or attention associated with music, what would be the point of manipulating the listener?

Given that your music is not necessarily considered "palatable" especially for a woman (at least, when Throwing Muses started) who has a voice that is not as "slick" or "pretty" as the ubiquitously accessible folksy chirpy songstress stereotype...what is the most asinine comment/description you've ever heard -- and hopefully can laugh about NOW!!!! (May or not be related to question 1.)

I’m not well known enough for anyone to insult me, really; they just ignore me, which is awesome! I want to work, that’s all. I really don’t care who’s paying attention, so I’m not in competition with anyone. Journalists call me underrated, but in a business where you have to suck to succeed, they’re just rating how dumb your output is.

I agree with you when it comes to embarrassing women, though. I know so many incredible, funny, strong, talented, hardworking people in this world who happen to be women, but none of them are in the music business. And that is what it is...it’s not a great place to be, honestly. But we can take it back. First women themselves have to refuse to play the fashion/flirting game and then we can decide what we’d like to share.

Thanks again, Ms. Hersh, for so many significant contributions that keep us moving forward in our own complex journeys....Be well.

Reissue of Crooked out on 9/27/19 on Fire Records!

US Tour Dates 2019

06 Sep: Pappy & Harriet’s, Pioneertown, CA, US 08 Sep: Valley Bar, Phoenix, AZ, US 10 Sep: Hi-Dive, Denver, CO, US 12 Sep: Slowdown, Omaha, NE, US 14 Sep: The Cedar Cultural Center, Minneapolis, MN, US 15 Sep: Shank Hall, Milwaukee, WI, US 19 Sep: Crafthouse Stage & Grill, Pittsburgh, PA, US 20 Sep: Rumba Cafe, Columbus, OH, US 22 Sep: Schubas, Chicago, IL, US 25 Sep: Tractor Tavern, Seattle, WA, US 26 Sep: Mississippi Studios, Portland, OR, US 29 Sep: Bottom Of The Hill, San Francisco, CA, US

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jeroldlockettus · 6 years ago

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The Future of Meat (Ep. 367)

Over 40 percent of the land in the contiguous U.S. is used for cow farming. Can scientists build a more sustainable burger? (Photo: Scott Olson/Getty)

Global demand for beef, chicken, and pork continues to rise. So do concerns about environmental and other costs. Will reconciling these two forces be possible — or, even better, Impossible

Listen and subscribe to our podcast at Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or elsewhere. Below is a transcript of the episode, edited for readability. For more information on the people and ideas in the episode, see the links at the bottom of this post.

* * *

Let’s begin with a few basic facts. Fact No. 1: a lot of people, all over the world, really like to eat meat — especially beef, pork, and chicken.

Jayson LUSK: If you add them all together, we’re actually higher than we’ve been in recent history.

That’s Jayson Lusk.

LUSK: I’m a professor and head of the agricultural economics department at Purdue University. I study what we eat and why we eat it.

DUBNER: In terms of overall meat consumption per capita in the U.S., how do we rank worldwide?

LUSK: We’re the king of meat eaters. So, compared to almost any other country in the world, we eat more meat per capita.

DUBNER: Even Brazil, Argentina, yes?

LUSK: Yes, and part of that difference is income-based. So, if you took Argentina, Brazil, and adjusted for income, they would probably be consuming more than us, but we happen to be richer, so we eat a little more.

The average American consumes roughly 200 pounds of meat a year. That’s an average. So, let’s say you’re a meat eater and someone in your family is vegetarian: you might be putting away 400 pounds a year. But, in America at least, there aren’t that many vegetarians.

LUSK: I probably have the largest data set of vegetarians of any other researcher that I know.

DUBNER: Really? Why?

LUSK: I’ve been doing a survey of U.S. food consumers every month for about five years, and one of the questions I ask is, “Are you a vegan or a vegetarian?” So, over five years’ time and about 1,000 people a month, I’ve got about 60,000 observations.

DUBNER: Wow. And is this a nationwide data survey?

LUSK: It is. Representative in terms of age and income and education. I’d say on average, you’re looking at about three to five percent of people say “yes” to that question. I’d say there’s a very slight uptick over the last five years.

So, again, a lot of meat-eating in America. What are some other countries that consume a lot of meat? Australia and New Zealand, Israel, Canada, Russia, most European countries. And, increasingly, China.

LUSK: One of the things we know is that when consumers get a little more income in their pocket, one of the first things they do is want to add high-value proteins to their diets.

DUBNER: What is the relationship generally between G.D.P. and meat consumption?

LUSK: Positive, although sort of diminishing returns, so as you get to really high income levels, it might even tail off a little bit. But certainly at the lower end of that spectrum, as a country grows and adds more G.D.P., you start to see some pretty rapid increases in meat consumption.

Meat consumption is of course driven by social and religious factors as well; by health concerns, and animal welfare: not everyone agrees that humans should be eating animals at all. That said, we should probably assume that the demand for meat will continue to rise as more of the world keeps getting richer. How’s the supply side doing with this increased demand? Quite well. The meat industry is massive and complicated — and often heavily subsidized. But, long story short, if you go by the availability of meat and especially what consumers pay, this is an economic success story.

LUSK: So prices of almost all of our meat products have declined pretty considerably over the last 60 to 100 years. And the reason is that we have become so much more productive at producing meat. If you look at most of the statistics, like the amount of pork produced per sow. And we’ve taken out a lot of the seasonal variation that we used to see, as these animals have been brought indoors. And you look at poultry production, broiler production: the amount of meat that’s produced per broiler has risen dramatically — almost doubled, say — over the last 50 to 100 years, while also consuming slightly less feed.

That’s due largely to selective breeding and other technologies. The same goes for beef production.

LUSK: We get a lot more meat per animal, for example, on a smaller amount of land.

As you can imagine, people concerned with animal welfare may not celebrate these efficiency improvements. And then there’s the argument that, despite these efficiency improvements, turning animals into food is wildly inefficient.

Pat BROWN: Because the cow didn’t evolve to be meat. That’s the thing.

Pat Brown is a long-time Stanford biomedical researcher who’s done groundbreaking work in genetics.

BROWN: The cow evolved to be a cow and make more cows and not to be eaten by humans. And it’s not very good at making meat.

Meaning: it takes an enormous amount of food and water and other resources to turn a cow or a pig into dinner — much more than plant-based foods. And as Pat Brown sees it, that is not even the worst of it.

BROWN: The most environmentally destructive technology on earth: using animals in food production. Nothing else even comes close.

Not everyone agrees that meat production is the environment’s biggest enemy. What’s not in dispute is that global demand for meat is high and rising. And that the production of meat is resource-intensive and, at the very least, an environmental challenge, with implications for climate change. Pat Brown thinks he has a solution to these problems. He’s started a company—

BROWN: —a company whose mission is to completely replace animals as a food production technology by 2035.

The meat industry, as you can imagine, has other ideas:

Kelly FOGARTY: We want to keep the term “meat” to what is traditionally harvested and raised in the traditional manner.

Today on Freakonomics Radio: everything you always wanted to know about meat, about meatless meat, and where meat meets the future.

* * *

What determines which food you put in your mouth every day? There are plainly a lot of factors: personal preference, tradition, geography, on and on.

LUSK: So, take something like horse consumption. It’s almost unheard of to even think about consuming a horse in the United States.

Jayson Lusk again, the agricultural economist.

LUSK: Whereas, you go to Belgium or France, it would be a commonly consumed dish.

But there’s another big factor that determines who eats what: technology. Technology related to how food is grown, preserved, transported. But also: technology that isn’t even related to the food itself. Consider the case of mutton. Mutton is the meat of an adult sheep. The meat of a young sheep is called lamb. I am willing to bet that you have not eaten mutton in the last six months, probably the last six years. Maybe never. But if we were talking 100 years ago? Different story.

LUSK: It’s certainly the case that back in the 1920’s and 30’s that mutton was a much more commonly consumed product.

Mutton was a staple of the American diet; one of the standard items shipped to soldiers during World War II was canned mutton. But shortly after the war, mutton started to disappear. What happened?

LUSK: A sheep is not just meat. These are multi-product species and they’re valuable not just for their meat but for their wool.

Oh yeah, wool. And unlike leather, which can be harvested only once from an animal, you can shear wool from one sheep many times, over many years.

LUSK: So anything that affects the demand for wool is also going to affect the underlying market for the rest of the underlying animal.

And what might affect the demand for wool? How about synthetic substitutes? Nylon, for instance, was created by DuPont in 1935, and became available to the public in 1940. A year later, polyester was invented.

LUSK: So, you know, any time you had new clothing technologies come along, that’s going to affect the underlying demand for sheep and make them less valuable than they would have been otherwise.

So an increase in synthetic fabrics led to a shrinking demand for wool — which meant that all those sheep that had been kept around for shearing no longer needed to be kept around. Also, wool subsidies were repealed. And America’s sheep flock drastically shrank: from a high of 56 million in 1942 to barely 5 million today.

LUSK: It is amazing. I’ve worked at several agricultural universities across the U.S. now, and often the largest sheep herds in those states are at the university research farms.

And fewer sheep meant less mutton for dinner. Is it possible Americans would have stopped eating mutton without the rise of synthetic fabrics? Absolutely: if you ask a room full of meat-eaters to name their favorite meat, I doubt one of them will say “mutton.” Still, this is just one example of how technology can have a big effect on the meat we eat. And if you talk to certain people, it’s easy to believe that we’re on the verge of a similar but much larger technological shift.

BROWN: My name is Pat Brown. I’m currently the CEO and founder of Impossible Foods, whose mission is to completely replace animals as a food production technology.

Brown grew up in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., as well as Paris and Taipei — his father worked for the C.I.A. He studied to be a pediatrician and in fact completed his medical residency, but he switched to biochemistry research.

BROWN: I had the best job in the world at Stanford. My job was basically to discover and invent things and follow my curiosity.

Brown did this for many years and was considered a world-class researcher. One of his breakthroughs was a new tool for genetic mapping; it’s called the D.N.A. microarray—

BROWN: —that lets you read all the words that the cell is using and effectively kind of start to learn the vocabulary, learn how the genome writes the life story of a cell, or something like that. It also has practical applications, because — what it’s doing, in a sort of a deterministic way, specifies the potential of that cell, or if it’s a cancer cell.

Some people think the DNA microarray will win Pat Brown a Nobel Prize. When I bring this up, he just shakes his head and smiles. It’s clear that his research was a deep passion.

BROWN: For me, this was the dream job, it was like in the Renaissance, having the Medicis as patrons or something like that.

But after many years, Brown wanted a change. He was in his mid-50’s; he took a sabbatical to figure out his next move.

BROWN: It started out with stepping back from the work I was doing and asking myself, “What’s the most important thing I could do? What could I do that would have the biggest positive impact on the world?” And looking at what are the biggest unsolved problems in the world? I came relatively quickly to the conclusion that the use of animals as a food-production technology, is by far. And I could give you endless reasons why that’s true, but it is absolutely true. By far the most environmentally destructive thing that humans do.

There is indeed a great deal of evidence for this argument across the entire environmental spectrum. The agricultural historian James McWilliams, in a book called Just Food, argues that “every environmental problem related to contemporary agriculture … ends up having its deepest roots in meat production: monocropping, excessive applications of nitrogen fertilizer, addiction to insecticides, rain-forest depletion, land degradation, topsoil runoff, declining water supplies, even global warming — all these problems would be considerably less severe” if people ate meat “rarely, if ever.”

LUSK: You know, there’s no doubt that meat production has environmental consequences. To suggest that it’s the most damaging environmental thing we do is, I think, a pretty extreme overstatement.

But what about the greenhouse-gas emissions associated with raising meat — especially in the U.S., which is the world’s largest beef producer?

LUSK: Our own E.P.A. — Environmental Protection Agency — suggests that all of livestock contributes about 3 percent of our total greenhouse-gas emissions. So, I mean, 3 percent is not nothing, but it’s not the major contributor that we see. That number, I should say, is much higher in many other parts of the world. So the carbon impacts per pound produced are so much smaller here than a lot of the world that when you tell people, “the way to reduce carbon emissions is to intensify animal production,” that’s not a story a lot of people like to hear.

DUBNER: Because why not, it sounds like it’s against animal welfare?

LUSK: Well, two reasons: Exactly, one is there are concerns about animal welfare, particularly when you’re talking about broiler chickens, or hogs — less so about cattle — and the other one is, there are concerns about when you concentrate a lot of animals in one place you can get all this waste in a location, that you have to think about creative ways to deal with that don’t have some significant environmental problems.

DUBNER: So, the E.P.A. number, livestock contributing three percent, does that include the entire production chain, though? Because, some of the numbers that I see from environmental activists is much, much higher than that.

LUSK: The U.N. estimate that you often hear from — originally was created in this report called “Livestock’s Long Shadow,” is something around 19 percent. But that 19 percent, roughly, number, is a global number. Actually, there was a study that came out pointing out some flaws in that, so they reduced it somewhat.

In any case, there is a growing concern in many quarters over the externalities of meat production.

LUSK: Over the last 5–10 years, there’s been a lot of negative publicity — stories about environmental impacts, about carbon emissions, about animal welfare. And if you just look at the news stories, you would think, “Boy, people must be really cutting back, given the sort of frightful stories that you see on the front pages of the newspapers.” But if you look at the data itself, demand looks fairly stable. And that suggests to me it’s hard to change people’s preference on this.

There’s something about meat consumption. Some people would argue that we’re evolved to like meat, that it’s a protein-, vitamin-packed, tasty punch that we’ve grown to enjoy as a species. There are some people that even argue that it’s one of the reasons we became as smart as we did, the vitamins and nutrients that were in that meat allowed our brains to develop in certain ways that it might have not otherwise.

Pat Brown saw that same strong preference for meat when he decided that the number-one scientific problem to solve was replacing animals as food.

BROWN: And it’s a problem that nobody was working on in any serious way. Because everybody recognized that most people in the world, including most environmental scientists and people who care about this stuff, love the foods we get from animals so much that they can’t imagine giving those up.

Brown himself was a longtime vegan.

BROWN: I haven’t eaten meat for decades, and that’s just a personal choice that I made long before I realized the destructive impact of that industry. That was a choice I made for other reasons. And it wasn’t something that I felt like I was in a position to tell other people to do. And I still don’t feel like there’s any value in doing that.

Brown makes an interesting point here. Many of us, when we feel strongly about something — an environmental issue or a social or economic issue — we’re inclined to put forth a moral argument. A moral argument would appear to be persuasive evidence of the highest order: you should do this thing because it’s the right thing to do. But there’s a ton of research showing that moral arguments are generally ineffective; people may smile at you, and nod; but they won’t change their behavior. That’s what Brown realized about meat.

BROWN: The basic problem is that people are not going to stop wanting these foods. And the only way we’re going to solve it is not by asking them to meet you halfway and give them a substandard product that doesn’t deliver what they know they want from meat or fish or anything like that. The only way to do it is, you have to say, “We’re going to do the much harder thing,” which is we’re going to figure out how to make meat that’s not just as delicious as the meat we get from animals, it’s more delicious and better nutritionally and more affordable and so forth.

In other words: a marginal improvement on the standard veggie burger would not do.

BROWN: It’s been tried. It just doesn’t work. It’s a waste of effort.

So Brown start fooling around in his lab.

BROWN: Doing some kind of micro experiments just to convince myself in a way that this was doable.

Those early experiments were fairly encouraging.

BROWN: I felt like, okay, there’s a bunch of things I thought could be useful, and then I felt like I could just go in with a little bit more confidence to talk to the investors.

“The investors” meaning venture capitalists. Remember, Brown’s at Stanford, which is next door to the biggest pile of venture capital in the history of the world.

BROWN: And basically my pitch them was very naive from a fundraising standpoint, in the sense that basically I mostly just told them about how there’s this absolutely critical environmental disaster that needs to be solved and—

DUBNER: And they’re probably expecting to hear something now about carbon capture, or—

BROWN: Yeah, that’s the thing. And most people still are. So I just told these guys, “Look, this is an environmental disaster. No one’s doing anything about it. I’m going to solve it for you.”

So how does the almost-pediatrician-who-became-a-freewheeling-biochemist build a better meat from the ground up? That amazing story after the break:

BROWN: Okay, bingo, this is how we’re going to do it.

* * *

It’s estimated that more than half of the greenhouse gas emissions associated with all animal agriculture comes from cows.

LUSK: And that is due to the fact that beef are ruminant animals.

The Purdue economist Jayson Lusk again.

LUSK: Their stomachs produce methane. It comes out the front end, not the back, as a lot of people think. And as a consequence — we look at carbon consequences — it’s mainly beef that people focus on, not pork or chicken, because they don’t have the same kind of digestive systems.

There has been progress in this area. For instance, it turns out that adding seaweed to cattle feed drastically reduces their methane output. But the scientist Pat Brown is looking for a much bigger change to the animal-agriculture industry.

BROWN: If I could snap my fingers and make that industry disappear right now — which I would do, if I could, and it would be a great thing for the world.

It is very unlikely to disappear any time soon; it is a trillion-dollar global industry, supported in many places by government subsidies, selling a product that billions of people consume once, twice, even three times a day. Pat Brown’s desire would seem to be an impossible one; the company he founded is called Impossible Foods. It’s essentially a tech startup, and it’s raised nearly $400 million to date in venture capital.

BROWN: So, we’ve only been in existence for about seven years and we have about 300 people. We started by basically building a team of some of the best scientists in the world to study how meat works, basically. And by that, I mean to really understand at a basic level the way, in my previous life, when I was a biomedical scientist, we might be studying how, you know, a normal cell of this particular kind becomes a cancer cell, understanding the basic biochemical mechanisms.

In this case, what we wanted to understand was: what are the basic biochemical mechanisms that account for the unique flavor chemistry and the flavor behavior and aromas and textures and juiciness and all those qualities that consumers value in meat? And we spent about 2.5 years just doing basic research, trying to answer that question, before we really started working on a product. And then decided for strategic reasons that our first product would be raw ground beef made entirely from plants.

DUBNER: Because burger is what people want?

BROWN: Well, there’s a lot of reasons why I think it was a good strategic choice: the largest single category of meat in the U.S., it’s probably the most iconic kind of meat in the U.S., it seemed like the ideal vehicle for communicating to consumers that delicious meat doesn’t have to come from animals, because it’s sort of the uber-meat for a lot of people.

DUBNER: Uber, lower-case “u.”

BROWN: With a lower-case, yes.

DUBNER: People are not hailing burgers, riding them around?

BROWN: No, thank God. And beef production is the most environmentally destructive segment of the animal agriculture industry. So, from an impact standpoint, it made sense as a choice.

So Pat Brown set about repurposing the scientific wisdom he’d accrued over a long, fruitful career in biomedicine. A career that may improve the health and well-being of countless millions. And now he got to work on a truly earth-shaking project: building a better burger. A burger that doesn’t come from a cow. An Impossible burger. So how did that work? What ingredients do you put in an Impossible burger?

BROWN: That’s an interesting aspect about the science, which is that we didn’t look for, “What are the precisely specific choices of ingredients that would work?” We studied, “What are the biochemical properties we need from the set of ingredients?” And then we did a survey of things available from the plant world that matched those biophysical properties of which there were choices.

So what are the main components of this burger?

BROWN: I can tell you what it’s made of right now. What it’s made of right now is different from how it was made two years ago, and that was different from how it was made two and half years ago and the next version we’re going to launch is a quite different set of ingredients.

We first interviewed Brown several months ago. The main ingredients at the time included:

BROWN: A protein from wheat; a protein from potatoes — not a starch from potatoes, but a protein from potatoes, it’s a byproduct of starch production. Coconut oil is the major fat source. And then we have a bunch of other small molecules, but they’re all familiar things: amino acids, vitamins, sugars. Nutrients.

But all these ingredients did not make Pat Brown’s plant-based hamburger meat taste or act or look like hamburger meat. It was still missing a critical component. A component called heme.

BROWN: Heme is found in essentially every living thing and heme in plants and human animals is the exact same molecule, okay? It’s just one of the most ubiquitous and fundamental molecules in life on Earth, period. The system that burns calories to produce energy uses heme as an essential component, and it’s what carries oxygen in your blood. And it’s what makes your blood red.

And none of this we discovered — this has been known for a long time and — so animals have a lot more heme than plants. And it’s that very high concentration of heme that accounts for the unique flavors of meat that you would recognize something as meat. It’s the overwhelmingly dominant factor in making the unique taste of meat and fish.

DUBNER: Is it involved in texture and mouthfeel and all that as well, or just taste?

BROWN: Just taste. Texture and mouthfeel are really important and there’s a whole other set of research around that. Super important — it kind of gets short shrift, because people think of the flavor as sort of the most dramatic thing about meat. But you have to get that other stuff right, too.

Brown and his team of scientists, after a couple years of research and experimentation, were getting a lot of that stuff right. But without heme — a lot of heme — their meatless meat would never resemble meat.

BROWN: So there is one component of a certain kind of plant that has a high concentration of heme, and that is in plants that fix nitrogen, that take nitrogen from the air and turn it into fertilizer. They have a structure called the root nodule, where the nitrogen fixation takes place and for reasons that are too complicated to explain right now they, that has a high concentration of heme and I just happened to know this from way back.

And if you slice open the root nodules of one of these plants:

BROWN: They have such a high concentration of heme that they look like a freshly cut steak, okay? And I did a calculation about the concentration of that stuff — soy leghemoglobin is the protein, which is virtually identical to the heme protein in muscle tissue, which is called myoglobin — that there was enough leghemoglobin in the root nodules of the U.S. soybean crop to replace all the heme in all the meat consumed in the U.S. Okay? So, I thought, “Genius, okay. We’ll just go out and harvest all these root nodules from the U.S. soybean crop and we’ll get this stuff practically for free.” Well, so I raised money for the company and we spent half the money trying to figure out how to harvest these root nodules from soybean plants, only basically to finally convince ourselves it was a terrible idea.

But if you’re a veteran scientist like Brown, a little failure is not so off-putting.

BROWN: You know you’re going to be doing things that are pushing the limits and trying entirely new things and a lot of them are going to fail. And if you don’t have a high tolerance for that and realize that basically, the way you do really really important, cool stuff is by trying a lot of things and not punishing yourself for the failures, but just celebrating the successes, you know, you’re not going to accomplish as much.

And the idea of buying up all the root nodules of the U.S. soybean crop wasn’t a complete failure.

BROWN: I mean, we got enough that we could do experiments to prove that it really was a magic ingredient for flavor. But then we had to start all over, and then what we did was: we said, ”Okay, we’re going to have to engineer a microorganism to produce gobs of this heme protein. Okay”? And since now we weren’t bound by any natural source, we looked at three dozen different heme proteins, everything from, you know, paramecium to barley to Hell’s Gate bacteria, which is like this —

DUBNER: That’s a plant? Hell’s Gate?

BROWN: It’s a bacteria that lives in deep sea vents near New Zealand that survive with temperatures above the boiling point of water that we mostly just looked at for fun, but funny thing about that, the reason we rejected it is that it’s so heat-stable that you can cook a burger to cooking temperature and it still stays bright red, because it doesn’t unfold. But anyway — and then we pick the best one, which turned out to be, just coincidentally, soy leghemoglobin, which is the one we were going after—

DUBNER: So your terrible idea was actually pretty good.

BROWN: It wasn’t really a brilliant idea, it accidentally turned out to be the right choice.

Through the magic of modern plant engineering, Pat Brown’s team began creating massive stocks of heme. And that heme would help catapult the Impossible burger well beyond the realm of the standard veggie burger — the mostly unloved veggie burger, we should say. The Impossible Burger looks like hamburger meat — when it’s raw and when it’s cooked. It behaves like hamburger meat. Most important, it tastes like hamburger meat.

Alison CRAIGLOW: I would like the American with an Impossible Burger.

WAITER: And how would you like that cooked?

CRAIGLOW: Oh, I didn’t realize — I’ll have it medium … medium. Is it pink in the middle when it’s … it is?

The Freakonomics Radio team recently ate some Impossible burgers in a restaurant near Times Square.

Zack LAPINSKI: I mean, I actually can’t taste the diff —

CRAIGLOW: It tastes like a burger

Ryan KELLY: Good day for the Impossible Burger

Greg RIPPIN: Yeah, approved by Freakonomics.

Their meal happened to coincide with the release of Impossible Burger 2.0 — an updated recipe that uses a soy protein instead of a wheat protein and has a few more tweaks: less salt, sunflower oil to cut the coconut oil, and no more xanthan gum and konjac gum. In my own tasting experience: Impossible Burger 1.0 was really good but a little slushy; 2.0 was burger-tastic.

These are of course our subjective observations. Here’s some actual evidence: Impossible Burgers are already being served in roughly 5,000 locations, primarily in the U.S. but also Hong Kong and Macau. These include very high-end restaurants in New York and California as well as fast-food chains like Umami Burger and even White Castle. This year, Impossible plans to start selling its burger meat in grocery stores.

BROWN: We’ve grown in terms of our sales and revenue about 30-fold in the past year. And our goal is to completely replace animal as a food technology by 2035. That means we have to approximately double in size and impact every year for the next 18 years.

DUBNER: Are we to understand that you are taking aim at pigs and chickens and fish as well?

BROWN: Yes, of course. So when we first started out, we were working on a technology platform and sort of the know-how about how meat works in general; we were working on understanding dairy products and cheeses and stuff like that. And then we decided, okay, we have to pick one product to launch with, and then we have to, from a commercialization standpoint, just go all in on it for a while.

DUBNER: As the scientist, or as a scientist, were you reluctant to kind of narrow yourself for that commercial interest, or did you appreciate that this is the way in this world things actually happen?

BROWN: Both. I mean, let’s put it this way: I would like to be able to pursue all these things in parallel, and if I had the resources I would. But if we launched another product right now, we’d just be competing against ourselves for resources for commercialization, so just doesn’t make any sense.

We put out an episode not long ago called “Two (Totally Opposite) Ways to Save the Planet.” It featured the science journalist Charles Mann.

MANN: How are we going to deal with climate change? There have been two ways that have been suggested, overarching ways, that represent, if you like, poles on a continuum. And they’ve been fighting with each other for decades.

The two poles are represented by what Mann calls, in his latest book, The Wizard and the Prophet. The prophet sees environmental destruction as a problem best addressed by restoring nature to its natural state. The wizard, meanwhile, believes that technology can address environmental dangers. This is, of course, a typology, a shorthand; a prophet doesn’t necessarily fear technology any more than a wizard fears nature. That said: if there were ever an embodiment of the wizard-prophet hybrid, a person driven by idealism and pragmatism in equal measure, I’d say it’s Pat Brown. Which means his invention has the capacity to upset people all across the spectrum.

The consumers and activists who might cheer a meatless meat are often the same sort of people who are anti-G.M.O. — genetically modified organisms. And the Impossible Burger would not have been possible without its genetically modified heme — which, by the way, the F.D.A. recently declared safe, after challenges from environmental groups like Friends of the Earth. Another group that might object to Impossible Foods? The meat industry. You know, the ones who use actual animals to raise food.

FOGARTY: My name is Kelly Fogarty and I serve as the executive vice president for the United States Cattlemen’s Association. And I am a fifth- generation beef cattle rancher here in Oakdale, California.

DUBNER: I’m just curious, as a woman, do you find yourself ever wishing the U.S. Cattlemen’s Association would change their name or are you okay with it?

FOGARTY: You know, it’s funny you mention that. There’s always a little bit of a notion there in the back of my mind of, you know, of course being in the industry for so long. I take it as representing all of the livestock industry. But you know, definitely having a special nod to all the female ranchers out there would be nice to have as well.

DUBNER: And what is the primary difference between the U.S. Cattlemen’s Association and the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association?

FOGARTY: As the United States Cattlemen’s Association, we are made up primarily of cattle producers. So your family ranches. You know, cow-calf operations run by producers and kind of for producers is what U.S.C.A. was built on. Whereas National Cattlemen’s Beef Association does include some more of packer influences as well as you know some of the processing facilities as well.

DUBNER: Can you just talk generally for a moment: how big of a threat does the beef industry see from alternative, “meat”?

FOGARTY: So from our end you know, in looking at the “meat” — and I appreciate you using those quotes around that term — from our end, we’re not so much seeing it as a threat to our product. What we are really looking at is not a limit on consumer choice or trying to back one product out of the market. It’s really to make sure that we’re keeping the information out there accurate and that what is available to consumers and what is being shown to consumers on labels is accurate to what the product actually is.

In 2018, Fogarty’s organization filed a petition with the U.S.D.A. to prevent products from being labeled as “beef” or “meat” unless they come from a cow.

DUBNER: Does that mean that your organization thinks that consumers are confused by labeling? Is that the primary objection?

FOGARTY: So the primary objection from the United Cattlemen’s Association is that we want to keep the term “meat” to what is traditionally harvested and raised in the traditional manner. And so when we see the term “meat” being put on these products that is not derived from that definition, what our producers came to us and really wanted us to act on was what we saw happened in other industries, specifically when you look at the dairy industry and where the term “milk” has now been used.

“Almond milk,” for instance. Which comes from almonds, not animals. Which led the National Milk Producers Federation to argue that it should not be sold as “almond milk.” The FDA agreed; its commissioner pointed out that “an almond doesn’t lactate.” There are important differences between so-called “milk” that doesn’t come from animals and so-called “meat” that doesn’t come from animals. Almond milk has very different nutritional content than cow’s milk; the Impossible Burger, meanwhile, has a similar nutritional profile to hamburger — including the iron content, which vegans can have trouble getting enough of. That’s another reason why Kelly Fogarty and the U.S. Cattlemen’s Association might not want the Impossible Burger to be labeled “meat.”

DUBNER: I am just curious about the mental state of your industry because I was looking at your Facebook page and one post the other day led with the following: “Eat or be eaten. Be at the table or on the menu. Fight or be forgotten.” So that sounds — it would make me believe that the future of meat is one in which cattle ranchers feel a little bit like an endangered species or at least under assault.

FOGARTY: I think that speaks to a lot of misconceptions that are out there regarding the U.S. beef industry. Whether it be in terms of you know nutrition, environment, animal welfare. We’ve really been hit from a lot of different angles over the years.

DUBNER: Okay, well, according to some scientific research, meat production and/or cattle ranching are among the most environmentally damaging activities on earth, between the resource-intensiveness, land but especially water, and the externalities, the runoff of manure and chemicals into groundwater.

FOGARTY: I think one of the first points to make is that cattle are defined as what is termed as upcyclers, and cattle today, they’re turning plants that have little to no nutritional value just as-is into a high-quality and a high density protein. And so when you look at where cattle are grazing in the U.S., and then also across the world, a lot of the land that they are grazing on are land that is not suitable for crops or it would be you know kind of looking as a highly marginal type of land. And the ability of livestock to turn what is there into something that can feed the world is pretty remarkable.

Fogarty believes her industry has been unfairly maligned; that it’s come to be seen as a target for environmentalist groups and causes.

FOGARTY: I would absolutely say, the livestock industry and to that matter, the agriculture industry as a whole I think has really been at the brunt of a lot of disinformation campaigns.

Fogarty points to that U.N. report claiming that the global livestock industry’s greenhouse-gas emissions were shockingly high. A report that was found to be built on faulty calculations.

FOGARTY: So, it was really an inequitable and grossly inflated percentage that really turned a conversation.

The inflated percentage of around 18 percent was really around 14.5 percent — so, “grossly” inflated may be in the eye of the aggrieved. Fogarty says that even though the error was acknowledged, and a revised report was issued.

FOGARTY: Folks have not forgotten it as much as we wish. It’s still something that it’s hard to have folks kind of un-read or un-know something that they initially saw.

The fact is that the agricultural industry is massive and massively complex. Without question, it exacts costs on the environment; it also provides benefits that are literally the stuff of life: delicious, abundant, affordable food. As with any industry, there are tradeoffs and there is friction: activists tend to overstate their claims in order to encourage reform; industry defenders tend to paper over legitimate concerns.

But in the food industry especially, it’s clear that a revolution is underway — a revolution to have our food be not just delicious and abundant and affordable but sustainable too, with fewer negative externalities. Some startups, like Impossible Foods, focus on cleverly engineering plant matter to taste like the animal flesh so many people love. Other startups are working on what’s called lab-grown meat, using animal stem cells to grow food without animals. This is still quite young technology, but it’s very well-funded. I was curious to hear Kelly Fogarty’s view of this.

DUBNER: One of the investors in the lab “meat” company Memphis Meats is Cargill, which is a major constituent of the big meat industry. I mean, another investor, for what it’s worth, is Bill Gates. But I’m curious what’s your position on that. Because the way I think about this long-term, presumably a firm like Cargill can win the future with alternative “meat” in a way that a cattle rancher can’t. So I’m curious what the position is of ranchers on this kind of investment from a firm like Cargill or other firms that are sort of hedging their bets on the future of meat.

FOGARTY: You know it’s a really interesting point, and it’s been a bit of a tough pill for producers to swallow, the fact that some of the big three, some of these big processing plants that have been so obviously heavily focused and have been livestock-dominant are now kind of going into this alternative and sometimes the cell-cultured lab meats, alternative proteins. And it really has been a point of contention among a lot of producers who are kind of confused, unsure, feel a little bit — I don’t want to say betrayed by the industry, but a little bit so…

Others may soon feel betrayed as well. A company called Modern Meadows is using similar technology to grow leather in the lab, without the need for cattle. The Israeli company SuperMeat is focused on growing chicken. And then there’s a company called Finless Foods.

Mike SELDEN: Finless Foods is taking the seafood back to basics and creating real fish meat entirely without mercury, plastic, without the need for antibiotics or growth hormones, and also without the need for fishing or the killing of animals because we grow the fish directly from stem cells.

That’s Mike Selden, the co-founder and C.E.O. of Finless. He’s 27 years old; he started out as a cancer researcher. Like Pat Brown, you could call him a wizard-prophet hybrid. He does take issue with the idea of “lab-grown” food.

SELDEN: The reality is, labs are by definition experimental and are not scalable. So this won’t be grown in a lab at all. It’s prototyped in a lab in the same way that snacks are prototyped in a lab. Doritos are prototyped in a lab by material scientists looking at different dimensions of like crunch and torsion and all these other sort of mechanical properties. So what our facility will look like when we’re actually at production scale is something really a lot closer to a brewery. Big steel tanks that are sort of allowing these cells space in order to divide and grow into large quantities of themselves, while accessing all of the nutrients that we put inside of this nutritional broth.

The fishing industry, like the meat industry, exacts its share of environmental costs. But like Pat Brown, Mike Selden does not want his company to win on goodwill points.

SELDEN: So, the goal of Finless Foods is not to create something that competes on ethics or morals or environmental goals. It’s something that will compete on taste, price, and nutrition — the things that people actually care about.

Right now, everybody really loves whales and people hate when whales are killed. What changed? Because we used to kill whales for their blubber in order to light lamps. It wasn’t an ethical movement, it wasn’t that people woke up one day and decided, “Oh, killing whales is wrong.” It was that we ended up using kerosene instead. We found another technological solution, a supply-side change that didn’t play on people’s morals in order to win. We see ourselves as something like that. You know, why work with an animal at all if you don’t need to?

Indeed: you could imagine in the not-so-distant future a scenario in which you could instantly summon any food imaginable — new foods, new combinations, but also foods that long ago fell out of favor. How much fun would that be? I asked the agricultural economist Jayson Lusk about this.

DUBNER: If we had a 3D printer, and it, let’s say, had, just, we’ll be conservative, 100 buttons of different foods that it could make me. Does anyone press the mutton button?

LUSK: Well, you know, one of the great things about our food system is that it’s a food system that, yes, makes food affordable, but also has a whole awful lot of choice for people who are willing to pay it. And I bet there’s probably at least one or two people out there that will push that will mutton button.

I also asked Lusk for his economic views on the future of meat, especially the sort of projects that inventors like Mike Selden and Pat Brown are working on.

LUSK: I have no problems with what Dr. Brown is trying to do there, and indeed I think it’s very exciting, this technology. And I think ultimately it’ll come down to whether this lab-grown meat can compete on the merits. So, there’s no free lunch here. In fact, the Impossible Burger — I’ve seen it on menus — it’s almost always higher-priced than the traditional beef burger. Now as an economist, I look at that and say, “Those prices, to me, should be signaling something about resource use.” Maybe it’s imperfect; maybe there’s some externalities. But they should reflect all the resources that were used to go in to produce that product. It’s one of the reasons that beef is more expensive than, say, chicken — it takes more time, more inputs, to produce a pound of beef than a pound of chicken.

So, why is it that the Impossible Burger is more expensive than the regular burger? Now, it could be that this is just a startup, and they’re not working at scale; and once they really scale this thing up, it’ll really bring the price down. It could be they’re also marketing to a particular higher-income consumer who is willing to pay a little more. But I think if the claims about the Impossible Burger are true over time, one would expect these products to come down significantly in price and be much less expensive than beef production. You know, this is not going to make my beef friends happy, but if they can do that, good for them; and consumers want to pay for, this product, they like the way it tastes and it saves some money, which means it’s saving some resources; I think in that sense, it’s a great technology.

Whether or not you eat meat; whether or not you’re interested in eating these alternative meats, from plant matter or animal stem cells — it’s hard not to admire the creativity that someone like Pat Brown has exercised: the deep curiosity, the ability to come back from failure, the sheer cleverness of putting together disparate ideas into a coherent scientific plan.

* * *

Freakonomics Radio is produced by Stitcher and Dubner Productions. This episode was produced by Zack Lapinski. Our staff also includes Alison Craiglow, Greg Rippin, and Harry Huggins; we had help this week from Nellie Osborne. Our theme song is “Mr. Fortune,” by the Hitchhikers; all the other music was composed by Luis Guerra. You can subscribe to Freakonomics Radio on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Here’s where you can learn more about the people and ideas in this episode:

SOURCES

Pat Brown, founder and c.e.o. of Impossible Foods.

Kelly Fogarty, executive vice president for the United States Cattlemen’s Association.

Jayson Lusk, economist at Purdue University.

Mike Selden, co-founder and c.e.o. of Finless Foods.

RESOURCES

“Tackling Climate Change Through Livestock,” Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (2013).

Just Food by James McWilliams (Little, Brown, 2009).

“Changes in the Sheep Industry in the United States,” The National Academies (2008).

EXTRA

“Two (Totally Opposite) Ways to Save the Planet,” Freakonomics Radio (2018).

The post The Future of Meat (Ep. 367) appeared first on Freakonomics.

from Dental Care Tips http://freakonomics.com/podcast/meat/

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