Radical Transparency

I've been doing some work for a shoe company.

They're getting serious about the materials aspect of sustainability, and they've hired me to help them launch a new brand.

Carl has decided that the hourly wage they've been paying me counts as The Carrot Project's first revenue. He reckons they hired me because they can tell from The Carrot Project and everything I've written in connection with The Carrot Project that I'm committed and maybe even a little knowledgeable about consumer education and sustainable business. I reckon they hired me because my mom went to high school with one of the founders, and I've known her since I was little.

We're probably both right.

Anyway, I've left the company's name out of this post because I'd much appreciate it if you'd take a few minutes to fill out a little market research survey that connects to the shoe project.

It's anonymous for suspense, and we'll open the curtain and show you the wizard as soon as you finish filling it out.

And, then, if you want to know more (about the company, the project, the materials, whether I'm worried about being both a consultant to the creators of consumer products and a provider of unbiased brand comparison information), get in touch. I'm happy to discuss.

I have no idea what's going on here.

Can anyone explain?

This doesn't work. FYI.

But maybe a blog post will...

I'm looking for a song. With lots of do do do dos.

A woman sings it, a singer to whom I remember my mother listening sometimes. Not as much as she listened to Tracy Chapman or Cat Stevens or Sam Cooke. But sometimes, which is kind of a lot.

The song doesn't have many rhymes. Maybe no rhymes at all, actually. That might be its thing: no rhymes. Which, if you happen to be writing a song for me, is probably a thing to avoid. I like rhymes.

Another one of the song's things is that the singer kinda talks it as much as she sings it. Which is an ok thing by me. Much better, in general, than the no rhymes thing.

The song also connects in my mind to In Liverpool. Maybe because Suzanne Vega sings them both. But maybe not.

Also, through In Liverpool, the song lives in a box in my memory with Fee and No Woman, No Cry. All three were on the first mixtape anyone ever gave me.  The do do do do song was not on that mixtape. Nor is this information relevant. I'm taking notes at this point. Notes about that first mixtape...

Fee, I liked immediately and still adore.

No Woman, No Cry I did not like, and that fact STILL blows my mind. It's still embarrassing. And it makes me sad. For myself at age 10 or however old I was. And for everyone else in the world that doesn't love No Woman, No Cry. I was missing out; so are those people.

The mixtape had two sides, each with different labels. One was called Like It's My Job. The other was called Like There's No Tomorrow. Both of those titles referred to peeing. I have to pee like it's my job. I have to pee like there's no tomorrow. Sanna, the babysitter that made me the mix, said those things, and I thought they were hilarious.

I think 10 is embarrassingly old to be answering to a babysitter. I'm pretty sure I thought that at the time too. But I also don't think I was the reason Sanna was around. My sister and cousins are all younger, and she was certainly in more charge of them than me. I think.

Anyway, it's time to wrap this up and post No Woman, No Cry. It's track 5 on Live! And it led off one of the two sides of that mixtape.

Click here to download:

No Woman, No Cry.mp3 (6573 KB)

The conversation started with ionized water.

It moved to fully absorbing the passion of a cause, NEEDING to change the world in the ONE way you KNOW it needs changing, committing, for good, for life, to a model or project or technology or religion.

And then we got specific. A dude that loved blue glass, thought it healed him, thought it could, should, and would heal everyone. Because he'd experienced it. Because he knew it worked.

And we remembered the Placebo Effect, remembered everything we don't know about how the body heals itself, remembered layers and layers of science, remembered how silly we are to imagine that we've peeled away all the mystery.

We weren't listening to this song. But we can pretend we were.

Soap Box Preacher is track 4 on Storyville.

Click here to download:

Soap Box Preacher.mp3 (5002 KB)

In the following photograph, Brent the Mushroom Hunter is carrying a chainsaw.  Attached to his backpack is a hardhat and a pair of earmuffs, both examples of reasonable chainsaw co-cargo.  Poking out of the backpack, however, are, according to my count, six small sticks.  The photograph, therefore, is a mystery and, thus, a riddle.

Anyone want to try to solve it?

After a solid many months of slackness, I'm back heavy into the introduce the world to Bob Doss project, and, one of my co-conspirators, the lovely LMW says:

Huh.  That's a weird opening sentence.

I respond:

Huh?

She reads:

Yesterday, while serenely mounting a ladder in the furnace room of the parsonage to change a light fixture...

And then she stops.  And decides it's a good mystery.  And a exceptionally excellent use of the word serenely.

And now I (and you) wonder what might follow...

My guess is that it involves an unexpected animal, hopefully a snake.

Got this song on a mix in December.  Listen to it all the time.  Still have no idea who's singing.  Think of it as the one and only Track 02.  Kinda like it that way.

Click here to download:

Track 02.mp3 (5179 KB)

An hypothesis* I heard last night...

There are three kinds of fear:

1. Fear of injury or pain.

2. Fear of losing (or lacking) connections with other people.

3. Fear of not being good enough.

That seem right?  What doesn't it cover?  How does fear of change fit in?  Fear of mystery?  Fear of the things unknown to which change gives rise?

*Note: An hypothesis?  A hypothesis?  H is a good letter.  Lots of possibilities.

I bought two postcards today.
 
I put them on the counter next to the register, and the lady told me I owed her $1.59. Instantly. Off the top of her head. Without the register.
 
So.
 
Either:
 
The postcards cost 79.5 cents each.
 
Or:
 
The odd number comes from sales tax rounding, and the lady is extremely good at percentages and multiplication.
 
Or:
 
The odd number comes from sales tax rounding, and the lady has sold two postcards and only two postcards so many times that she remembers exactly what they cost.
 
Or:
 
She made up a price. With confidence. And nonchalance. Just charged me something she thought would make sense to me.
 
Or:
 
What?