Random Reflections | MUSEUM FATIGUE

United Airlines: The Food of the Future is Now

June 24, 2012 by Museum Fatigue

I don’t sleep well on long airplane flights. I usually stay awake through the whole thing and keep myself busy by reading, writing, watching movies and thinking. After twelve hours in the air I usually get pretty antsy and a bit punchy from lack of sleep. Often in my head I replay parts of Louis Black’s funny monologue about his airplane flight to New Zealand. Sometimes, however, in the final hours of the flight—when I have no endurance left and […]

Categories: Food, Random Reflections • Tags: 2001: A Space Odyssey, airplane meals, David Graeber, food, future, Hipstamatic, Science Fiction, soylent, soylent green, United Airlines

“Trash Values” or “How a Local Newspaper Made Me a Customer Against My Will and Littered All Over My Neighborhood”

May 28, 2012 by Museum Fatigue

What is litter? What is trash? One could look for a definition given by an esteemed dictionary or Wikipedia, but we all know it when we see it. Trash is something we don’t want. It is waste. It pollutes. Its persistence in our environment makes us uncomfortable. We bag it and stick it in bins in our garages or alleys. It disappears in the early morning—picked up by unknown workers and removed to hidden places most of us will never see. […]

Categories: Random Reflections • Tags: consumption, corporate culture, neighborhood, trash

Mystery Object #1: Westerner Blowing Bubbles

January 26, 2012 by Museum Fatigue

From time to time in my travels I have come across unusual things that seem to defy interpretation—inscrutable objects that intrigue me because they are so mysterious. In previous generations, perhaps an anthropologist in an unfamiliar place would have been captivated by unusual statues, unfamiliar religions, esoteric cultural habits or exotic totems. The museums of former colonizers are stocked with the collections of such objects of mystery—institutional cabinets of academic curiosity. Today, however, many of those formerly exotic objects are sold […]

Categories: Mystery Objects, Random Reflections • Tags: consumption, mystery object

Weeding My Thought Garden

September 9, 2011 by Museum Fatigue

Listen to many of the right-wing opponents of national healthcare and they will tell you that it is socialist or totalitatian. The well-read ones might even pull out the literary reference and assert that it is Orwellian–that the governement will take it over your life, tell you what to do with your health, and set up death panels to decide the final day of your mortal coil. I have always found this argument to contradict reality. Nearly every encounter I have […]

Categories: Random Reflections • Tags: biomanagement, healthcare

China’s Facebook disconnect–The great dark space

December 14, 2010 by Museum Fatigue

A friend of mine just posted a link on Facebook to a very interesting image that is also beautiful to look at. It is a visualization of Facebook friend data–ten million Facebook friend pairs, to be exact. Mapped geographically against a black background the pairs create a striking image. The image’s creator, Paul Butler, a Facebook employee explains on a Facebook note that he created the image in an effort to map the “locality of friendship.” On one level it is […]

Categories: Random Reflections • Tags: China, Facebook, internet

I Love Beijing’s Sensitive Words!

June 11, 2010 by Museum Fatigue

Right in the middle of my visit last summer, Facebook disappeared. It was added to the list of sites blocked by the Chinese firewall. At the time I was in China, hanging out with my friends, so we really didn’t miss not seeing each other on Facebook. When I mentioned it at a dinner, the feeling was that it was only temporary blockage that would surely pass. Someone at the table even thought it might have just been a glitch […]

Categories: Fieldwork, Random Reflections • Tags: China, internet, 敏感词

Late Evening, June 3, 2010

June 8, 2010 by Museum Fatigue

Late in the evening on June 3rd I was enjoying Sichuan hot pot in downtown Beijing. Twenty-one years later, rather than writing a reflection, I thought a video clip might be a better commentary.

Categories: Random Reflections, Video clips • Tags: hotpot, June 4

Does the Market Have a Flavor?

May 3, 2010 by Museum Fatigue

Every year in my fall semester class, Development to Globalization, we begin by reading Sidney Mintz’s classic book, Sweetness and Power. The book serves as a very accessible introduction to some aspects of colonial history and the way that markets and culture interact. For the average American student who is accustomed to thinking about markets as operating according to rational economic rules and the exercise of power as an overt threat to violence, Mintz describes a different perspective. He looks […]

Categories: Random Reflections • Tags: Minnesota State Fair, Sidney Mintz, sugar