TONE AND HABIT

Will you buy my mongolian cow sour yogurt, comrade?

If, like me, you'd be fascinated by an examination of "how advertising appropriates a dominant anti-consumerist political ideology to promote consumption within China’s social and political transition,” then by all means click this link to Science Daily.

A couple of researchers looking at advertisements in the People’s Daily, China's largest daily newspaper, noted the ways that advertisers have co-opted communist symbols and messages, such as red stars and red flags, to promote color TVs, refrigerators, and everything else under the sun.

Using patriotic symbols to help sell stuff isn't exactly revolutionary (get it?), but this is an appreciable irony: Communist political propaganda being harnessed to fuel the transition to a consumer culture, itself part of a socialist strategy to modernize the world's largest economy.

Aside from that, I learned about the Mongolia Cow Sour Yogurt Super Girls.  Coming soon to Publix, we hope.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/07/080717092100.htm

Golf, confidence and coping

These are not hypothetical questions, on the golf course or in life:  How do you cope with stress, and how does confidence affect your perception of the world?

(Also not irrelevant questions today.  I saved a brutal day at Seminole Golf Course yesterday with a sweet par on No. 18.  Solid drive, 3 wood from the fairway to get me in striking distance, a nice 8 iron onto the green about 15 feet from the pin, then a solid two putt to get out with par.  Don't ask about the other 17 ...)

Golfers who play well are more likely to see the hole as larger than their poor-playing counterparts, according to a recently released study mentioned in Science Daily.  "What athletes say about how they see the hole and how well they play is true. We found golfers who play better judge the hole to be bigger than golfers who did not play as well," said Jessica K. Witt, an assistant professor of psychological sciences at Purdue University who studies perception in athletes.

Which suggests, no surprise, that confidence in your own ability can positively affect your perception of the world.  No word on whether confidence affects your perception of conceptual challenges as well as spatial challenges, but that certainly wouldn't be a stretch.

I found that study linked to another possibly more useful, on how high level golfers successfully cope with stress.  You can find it here at Science Daily:  http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/06/050617235448.htm 

A study of 18 of Ireland's best young international male golfers showed some interesting differences in times they coped well under stress, and times when they coped badly.

"In general, effective coping involved gaining a sense of control, while ineffective coping involved the golfers trying to force their play," said co-author Dr. Nick Holt, a professor of Physical Education and Recreation at the University of Alberta.

During effective coping golfers maintained a positive mindset by using positive self-talk, blocking negative thoughts, and focusing on the next shot (rather than on past shots). They stayed physically relaxed by using deep breathing exercises and stretching. Finally, they sought advice from their caddies, and were sure to follow their playing routine.

All of which are practical strategies that may find application well beyond the golf course.

A piebald duck, the Puzzle-maker, and your own bashful questing beast

There are hours that return to you after many years, sometimes in dreams.  These revenant hours linger through your morning shower ... a half-recalled turn of phrase, a tug in the heart, shapes of faces and emotions, a fog of sentiment that evaporates even as the mirror over the sink dries to reveal the man of the moment.  By the time you turn the key in the ignition and drop the stick into reverse, the hour is gone.

Unless someone has captured it somewhere on page, in the words that the Puzzle-maker himself might have invoked when he created that hour for you.  A ear that can discern those weird noises is a rare gift.

Bucky McMahon hears them, and his new (and first) collection Night Diver is that dream you forgot over the morning coffee.

I remember some of the pieces from their original run in the Tallahassee Democrat's Limelight section in McMahon's Barmadillo column.  The Friday Democrat was a treasure when the Barmadillo was out in the world and writing, something anticipated.  Bucky already covered it in the foreword, but I'll also say thank you to Mark and Zilpha and Janey for making that column happen.  As a young man (this was maybe 1990 ... I would have been 19), I read those columns and I saw a path.

There's a lot of good writing in here, much of it in the travel and adventure categories, a great deal of it from in and around Florida, and there is an illustrated dream journal.  Night Diver is eclectic and sublime.

The title of this post is taken from words that appear on page 187 of Night Diver in a piece called Lake Ella.  An hour walking around Lake Ella, while a cold front creeps over town.  We all forget important things, sometimes, in the circuits that we walk in our waking lives.  Thank God for those few who, in our march along the water's edge, can pick up the sound of the unaccented beat.