Darkness on the edge of Nebraska. And Atlantic City. And cities.
Also: we like things based on the accumulation of chunks. Chunks!
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Bruce was in a dark place. So was the Chicken Man. So was the Chicken Man’s house too.
I think I knew that Bruce Springsteen was Going Through Some Stuff with the Nebraska album long before I really knew what Going Through Some Stuff even was. I was fourteen years old when the album came out and my sixteen-year-old sister, a big Bruce fan, had picked up the record because of course she did. I think she listened to it a bit before going back to putting The River on a few more times. When she explained the Nebraska album, she sounded a bit perplexed, perhaps weirded out by the thing. So I knew something deep and - because I was so young - unknowable was happening on this one.
Then I saw the video for “Atlantic City”:
And it was, to put it mildly, unlike anything else on MTV at the time. Black and white, buildings crumbling, bleakness all around. Pretty different from this for instance:
Yeah, something heavy was going on with Bruce. And now, more than 40 years later, I’m finally getting to the bottom of it. That’s on this week’s podcast where I talk with author, musician, and professor Warren Zanes, who has literally written the book on Nebraska. It’s called Deliver Me from Nowhere: The Making of Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska.
Warren explains how Bruce was coming off the success of his last album, The River, which hit number one and spawned his first top ten single, “Hungry Heart”. But rather than use that success as a springboard for something even bigger, he went small, crafting songs that were at least partially informed by the traumatic experiences of his New Jersey childhood. He got in touch with something much more introverted than the extroverted work of his past and future. Rather than work with his band in a recording studio like usual, Springsteen, Warren explains, recorded all the parts for Nebraska in a small bedroom in a rented New Jersey house on a four-track cassette recorder.
My favorite part of this interview is Warren’s extended riff comparing Springsteen to Odysseus, particularly when Odysseus escapes the Cyclops by claiming he is “Nobody”.
Cities report that things are real bad for mental health
The US Conference of Mayors has been meeting and issuing a report on how things are going in their cities. And in terms of mental health, the answer is… NOT GREAT:
In a survey conducted this spring, 97% of mayors said requests for mental health services increased in their city in the past two years, but 88% lack resources to address the crisis. Participating cities spanned the US, and included Chicago; Seattle; Montgomery, Alabama; and Atlanta.
Substance abuse was the main cause for increasing mental health problems, 85% of cities reported. That was followed by Covid-19, homelessness and economic concerns.
Size discrimination causing mental health problems in the workplace
A new survey points out that workplaces can be toxic. Which, yeah. But it drills deeper into some brow-raising stats on an issue that doesn’t get talked about much. Body size.
61% of employees in larger bodies believe their body size factored into whether they received a promotion.
32% of workers in larger bodies are less likely to get promoted.
27% in larger bodies say they are less likely to quit or get laid off (12% less).
68% of remote employees try to hide their full body on video calls.
The study concluded that body size issues can affect workers, whether it’s because of outright discrimination, unspoken bias or personal insecurities. Size discrimination can increase stress and make it harder for some people to get ahead in their careers—especially since workers felt that body size factored into the decisions behind their promotions and raises.
The Best Illusions of the Year
The top prize went to the practical version of Harry Potter’s platform 9 3/4ths:
There are many more at this kottke link. Okay, let’s see one more:
To decide if we like things, we break the things into chunks
That’s according to SCIENCE ITSELF. And a new study.
It turns out that we create our responses not from comparing the experience, say, of looking at a painting, to our learned or innate art or painting values, but rather by breaking the art down into its component pieces and then scoring it on the number and intensity of chunks that we like. The process is very similar to how we decide whether or not we like food. We rate a piece of cheese, say, by the amount of fat, sugar, carbs, and micronutrients that our taste buds determine that it has.
In the same way, we break a painting down into its colors, representations, shapes, etc, and rate it according to the number of pleasing elements that it has. Lots of red? A pleasing face? A nice tree? Whatever our particular faves are get totted up in a kind of aesthetic score.