The UnitedHealthcare CEO shooting; lots of online shopping; Alterations Plus Dry Cleaning.
I’m All Lost In…
The 3 things I’m obsessing about THIS week.
#60
Before I get into this week’s obsessions, I have some reading recommendations, a historic listening recommendation, and a You-must-watch-this-video recommendation.
Reading Recommendations:
* PubliCola’s report about progressive Seattle City Council member Tammy Morales’ disappointing resignation is mandatory reading for anyone trying to understand the dynamics of Seattle’s current reactionary political landscape. Erica documents how bully culture is the go-to M.O. for 2024’s conservative-backlash council. On Bluesky, I called them the Cancel-Culture City Council.
* For another dose of local politics (and more on Seattle’s conservative slide backward) check out this Urbanist article about how local spending on transformative transportation upgrades is becoming a thing of Seattle’s progressive past:
The Seattle Transportation Levy represents a step back, prioritizing the “basics” of the city’s transportation system over investments that set Seattle up to be able to reduce emissions, create more vibrant communities, and get ahead of expected population growth.
Robot hand
* More reading: An article in the December 2 print edition of the New Yorker (November 25th online), “A Revolution in How Robots Learn,“ is the latest tale from the dystopian frontier of A.I.
Featuring Google subsidiary DeepMind and its ALOHA project’s experiment in teaching robotic hands to tie shoes, fold laundry, and play ping pong, (and potentially, the reporter panics, “someday shoot somebody”), this article outlines competing approaches to teaching robots menial, yet surprisingly complex tasks. There’s “imitation learning,” which uses repetition of analog, human-controlled physical directives, and there’s “reinforcement learning,” where a robotic hand tries to figure out practical skills all by itself as it creates a datalog of stored wisdom through trial and error and “flywheeling” (a concept the writer didn’t do a great job explaining, but basically means building momentum through small wins.)
There’s also a third way.
Founded by an ex-ALOHA engineer, Stanford robotics professor Chelsea Finn, a company called Physical Intelligence combines both approaches:
The A.I. driving this remarkable display, called π₀, can reportedly control half a dozen different embodiments, and can with one [program] solve multiple tasks that might challenge an ALOHA: bagging groceries, assembling a box, clearing a dinner table. It works by combining a ChatGPT-esque model, which has broad knowledge of the world and can understand images, with imitation learning.
This article, (though, admittedly, not 100% clear … “If robotics models turn out to be embodiment-agnostic…” ??) reminded me of my favorite aperçu from fast-fashion revolutionary Mary Quant, an important city culture ideologue. Quant quipped (circa 1965): It’s ridiculous, in this age of machines, to continue to make clothes by hand. Why can’t people see what a machine is capable of doing itself, instead of making it copy what the hand does?
* And a related reading recommendation: The Washington Post published an article this week about personal companion App companies such as Chai and Replika that market addicting chatbots.
Listening Rec:
1957
I had never heard of late 1950s/early 1960s blues pianist, Ray Bryant. But now, thankfully, I have. His hard bop version of jazz standard “Angel Eyes” is a piece of nightclub perfection. It’s the second track on Bryant’s refined, dynamite piano, bass, and drums debut album, 1957’s The Ray Bryant Trio.
Watching Rec:
* Lest you think I’ve forgotten about the WTA, don’t worry, that’s not happening. I’m still crazed about professional women’s tennis.
My recommended viewing is this 26-minute year-end compilation of the winning match points of every non-Grand Slam final (there are 50) from the 2024 women’s tour. (As we know, World No. 1 Daffy Saby won two of 2024’s four Grand Slams, while World No. 2 Iga Swiatek won one, and World No. 10 Barbora Krejčíková won one.)
Watching this highlight reel of lower-level 500 and 250-point tournament winners gives you a sense of which players are poised to break into the top rankings next year. (The video also highlights 1,000-point level tournaments, but those were dominated by the big names like Saby, Swiatek, and World No. 3 Coco Gauff.)
20-year-old Russian Diana Shnaider, World No. 13, stands out on this 2024 winners medley; she won four of these lower-tier tournaments, the most of any player. China’s Qinwen Zheng and Kazakhstan’s Elena Rybakina, won three apiece, but both of them are already ranked in the Top 10 at 5 and 6 respectively. So, Shnaider didn’t only rack up more trophies, hers felt weightier.
Now, onto this week’s obsessions:
1) In addition to having unstoppable melodramatic appeal, this week’s UnitedHealthcare CEO assassination at 6th Ave & W. 54th St., right around the corner from MoMA in Midtown Manhattan, is a defining political moment in the otherwise confusing upheaval that is 2024.
In a year dominated by Trump’s chaotic, populist, and ugly disrespect for civic norms, the TikTok left now seems—analogously—to be rallying around populist violence in the name of corporate accountability.
What strikes me about the left’s glee (and I do understand their logic) over this “Eat the Rich” hit is that their clever snark (“The conservatives always said we needed more good guys with guns”) feels oblivious. Even if this good looking, instant-folk-hero vigilante turns out to be a Chomsky-reading Bernie bro) lefties are 100% misunderstanding the MAGA right. Yes, hypocritical Donald Trump practices corrupt crony capitalism, but he sells class war.
A reality check for inattentive liberals on MAGA ideology: please watch one of right wing U.S. Sen. Josh Hawely’s (R-Nebraska) recent Senate Judiciary Committee hearings where he has verbally slaughtered cocky CEOs and execs from the credit card industry, the airline industry, and the health insurance industry for their greedy bottom line values.
I’m not trying to hype Trumpism. As a lefty myself who detests the MAGA cult, I’m issuing a “Be careful what you wish for” warning to my political compatriots, cautioning in part that a class war program will quickly be co-opted by Trumpers, who similarly prioritize gut anger over humanist analysis.
And just as the “First they came for the trans youth…” poem goes, so go hit lists.
There is a fun (sorry) side note about this assassination, though: Biking is obviously the quickest way to get around Manhattan. (The assassin, who fled on a bike, zipping through Central Park to the Upper West Side, was 30+ blocks away just 15 minutes after the shooting, where he ditched the bike on W. 86th St.)
12/4/24
2) It’s probably not the healthiest way to deal with the Holiday Season blues, but this week has been all about online shopping therapy:
Banana Republic slacks (an olive green pair and an umber pair), a troupe of colorful new dish towels, a book of Euripides fragments, a thick, fuzzy gray bath mat, yet another Dexys Midnight Runners t-shirt, another Joshua Tree baseball cap, a pack of new underwear, and a John McEnroe “You Cannot Be Serious” t-shirt (my now on-loop response to Trump) all arrived pronto in the mail room this week after I blissed out online with my credit card.
I also gave my dear old friend Gregor Samsa a gift subscription to Ben Rothenberg’s Tennis substack.
3) Speaking of Banana Republic slacks … I (despondently) noticed that my fantastic, chalk blue slim-fit pants had an incorrigible grease stain on the upper right thigh.
My washing machine was outmatched, so I brought the besmirched pair of pants to Alterations Plus Dry Cleaning, the reliable neighborhood dry cleaners four blocks from my house on 15th Ave. E.
Alterations Plus Dry Cleaning, my expert neighborhood dry cleaners.
I pointed out the maddening grease stain to the 60-something Chinese matriarch who runs the shop, and after she cast her eyes up and down the entire pant leg, she looked up, and corrected me: “Everywhere.”
Two days later, seemingly sandblasted, my favorite pants were immaculate top to bottom. And soft.