neophile

We like new things

New thing of the day, August 9th 2021

Professional Musicians React

Professional Musicians React - click to see conversation about Nirvana’s “Smells like Teen Spirit”

From time to time, Jack Conte and some of his musician friends sit down and listen to some songs and talk about what they like and don’t like, what makes the songs “tick” and often how jealous they are of the artists and their skills.

Easily digestible, fun, a little insightful and feel good.

New thing of the day, August 8th 2021

Soft White Underbelly

Soft White Underbelly - click to see conversation with Matthew who is a heroin addict

Mark Laita, a professional photographer, interviews and portraits people from the underbelly of life. Drug users, prostitutes, pimps, gangster, hillbillies…sad and at times shocking.

Mr. Laita tends to pay his interviewees some amount of money to film them and he has been criticized for taking advantage of people who are already marginalized. While it’s easy to see how these videos can be seen (and consumed) as social pornography, I still find that many of them bring a level of insight and perspective that I rarely see elsewhere.

For me, these videos are a strong reminder of how, behind all the statistics, news stories, punditry and scary images, are real people with real lives. How easy it is to imagine a similar destiny for all of us, were we dealt a similarly bad hand as most of the interviewees have had.

Regret

Anne will be there, sometimes, in my dreams. She is back from the dead or she was never ill in the first place. Usually though, she is still very sick. It's confusing for a moment and then I'm relieved and happy to see her. Last night the old gang was hanging out and suddenly I saw her from across the room. She was laying on a white sofa, looking lonely and unwell.
    
Almost 5 years ago I met up with Henrik outside the hospital. The weather was crisp and nice and we walked the grounds while his wife was being moved to the intensive care unit. It was a Saturday morning and only a few days ago Anne had been making dinner appointments with friends. Radiation and medication had wiped out her immune system and suddenly she was rushed to the hospital. Henrik looked like a trench war soldier. The hospital was running on a skeleton crew for the weekend and he was telling me about incompetence, blood and piss. We had known for a long time that Anne would die and the closer it came the harder he fought to keep her alive.

He asked me if I wanted to see her. I said "yes, of course", but I can not remember entering the hospital nor how we got to the ICU. Suddenly she was there, across the room, propped up on pillows in a big hospital bed. She whimpered and squirmed in her sleep. She was very pale behind the flush from the fever and the heavy pain killers had made her bloated. Henrik went to her and stroked her chin and she stirred and muttered some words before settling down. There must have been nurses or doctors around, but I can not remember seeing any. I took a step back and felt more frightened than I ever been in my life. 

I was scared she would wake and see me. That she would be confused and scared seeing me there. I was scared I would make it harder for Henrik, harder for her and harder for me. I told myself I should give them some privacy and left saying something of no importance. Henrik called me the next morning to tell me that Anne had just died. 

Last night I saw her from across the room again and this time I went and held her in my arms and kissed her goodbye.

Definition

Neophiles/Neophiliacs have the following basic characteristics:

  • The ability to adapt rapidly to extreme change
  • A distaste or downright loathing of tradition, repetition, and routine
  • A tendency to become bored quickly with old things
  • A desire, bordering on obsession in some cases, to experience novelty
  • A corresponding and related desire to create novelty by creating or achieving something and/or by stirring social or other forms of unrest.