Let's Talk About Girls

Have you ever read the 33 1/3 album review of Celine Dion's Let's Talk About Love album? I can't recommend it enough. 33 1/3 is waging a one-series war to keep pop music criticism alive. The series gives a music critic an album and book length to review it. By all accounts, the series is a fantastic success, but the review of Miss Dion's magnus opus is probably the most cited and most read.

The setup: 33 1/3 gave a hipster dude one year and the most horrible of tasks: to learn to appreciate Dion's music. What makes the book so awesome is that the dude actually gets there. By the end of the book, he states that he really, truly enjoys Dion's music, and this reader completely believes him.

How did he get there? First, he acknowledged that, technically, Celine Dion is amazing. Each and every person reading this blog has rolled their eyes at Dion's "oversinging," but we should all be able to admit that her voice is amazing, that there's nothing she can't do with it. So why do so many people have such a visceral negative reaction to Dion's music, when she's such an obvious, undeniable talent?

The author's contention is that the hate stems from the class consciousness of the listener. He shows how Dion's music has its roots in genres traditionally favored by the working class, genres that upper and middle class listeners have learned to reject as a way to separate themselves from "the rabble." The pop culture industry took that class consciousness and made it mass consciousness. In other words, they made it uncool. I don't want to like something that sounds like something the female students at Tech School might listen to.

In short, what we think of a piece of art depends highly on the trappings that surround it. Dress something (like country music) up in the clothes of Red America, and people like me are going to hate all of it, even despite the undeniable talent of someone like Alan Jackson. Dress something up in upper middle class clothes, language, mannerisms, and experience, and people like me will fall for it.

I can't stop thinking about that review when I hear people talk about Girls. If you like Girls, bully for you. I liked Entourage, because it was a fairy tale very typical to someone of my age at that point in time. However, I never claimed that Entourage was particularly good or meaningful. Girls is getting such accolades, and we have the class trappings of the show and its target audience to thank for it.

Girls is not original, profound, or even particularly well done. It trades in exactly the same shock aesthetic as the worst reality TV: promiscuous sex, bad behavior, and balling with no concern for real life trivialities like a job. It's JUST rich 20 something white girls pretending to be broke but otherwise acting like Real Housewives. You can argue that allowing young women a venue to express their sexuality on their terms is a good thing, but it's not like that hasn't been done before. Sure, there's some angst, but that's because, in the upper class 20 something worldview, there's SUPPOSED to be angst. It's not a very fulfilling fairy tale for the rich and elite if they don't rage against something. If you're just happy all the time, you must be stupid. You probably like Celine Dion or something.

But unlike the Real Housewives, these girls wear respectable clothes. They went to the right schools. Their vocabulary could ace the SAT Verbal. And, of course, Lena Dunham comes from NYC art royalty, so how could she possibly make something mundane? These cues, and these cues alone, have been enough to convince Very Important People (thanks, Paul) that Girls is an important snapshot of our cultural gestalt.

I don't begrudge the twenty something who are into the show, because, shit, every generation should get to retell the same old story in a way that resonates with them. If young women want their own Entourage, they should get it and enjoy it. What bothers me is older folks who should know better.

PS: I'm willing to grant a little ground on one of the most criticized aspects of the show, which is Lena Dunham's willingness to be naked on screen. Potentially positive message about body types and beauty there.

The Ten Millionth Kendrick Lamar Blog Post

I know I'm late with this post.  I know everyone and their mother has screamed good things about this album.

But if ever cared about hip hop, go get the Kendrick Lamar record.  I'm not sure if it's the instant classic many say it is, mainly because modern production techniques like compression leave me cold.  Good Kid M.A.A.D. City's beats are as hot as beats can get in 2012, but they still sound a little clinical and overly digital for my tastes.  The boom bap is there, but not like it used to be.  You have every right to dismiss such complaints as another old guy whining and waxing nostalgic for an 808 and Primo's technique, but if we're serious about our standards for a classic, these are the heights an album's beats must reach.

Lamar himself deserves every bit of acclaim he's receiving.  He's simply a lyrical monster.  Rod from The Black Guy Who Tips made fun of the developing cottage industry of dudes trying to flow over the album's beats, because there's absolutely no way anyone can exceed the lyrics K. Dot has already spit. I don't need to break down how brilliantly he weaves the extended metaphor throughout the entire album, because someone has already done it.

If I have to pick my favorite thing about Kendrick's rhyming on the record, it's how he manages to presents the joys of youthful nihilism and reflect on their consequences at the same time.  Listen Money Trees or Backseat Freestyle, Kendrick communicates both the excitement I remember from raising hell as a kid and the remorse I feel about most of that stuff now.  I couldn't write an essay on the topic half as elegant, and he's doing it as poetry.  Amazing.

Anyway, if you haven't yet, do whatever you have to do to listen to this record.

All Questions are Good Questions

On Friday, I did the keynote address for the Connecticut Association of Student Councils' state conference.  It was a blast.  The energy from the kids gave me a tremendous boost in my stride.  As part of my day, the fantastic Todd Burlingham and I presented "Do the Math: Let X Equal Student Activities," the new presentation from the Alliance for Student of Activities.

In brief, "Do the Math" is a presentation that aims to promote the expansion of student activities at the middle school and high school levels.  Scholarly evidence of the highest quality and published in over 100 prestigious peer-reviewed journals show that student activities have an independent, statistically significant positive effect on almost any outcome you can choose.  You want a kid to have a better GPA, better test scores, better chance of graduating high school and college?  Put that kid in student activities, because student activities make all of those things happen and more.

The early stages of the presentation's history have been an unqualified success.  The presentation debuted in December of 2011, and there's a very good chance that 5,000 or more people will see it before the end of 2012.  Moreover, we're winning the hearts and minds of our audience faster than we thought possible.  In particular, principals seem to be paying attention.

The people behind "Do the Math" are mostly professional educators.  I am the lone social scientist in the group, so my role has been to translate these compelling results into terms that our audience of teachers, principals, school board members, superintendents, and policymakers can understand.  I have done a good enough job in this task for our presentation to be credible and professional, and I would stake my professional reputation that the information in the presentation is accurate.

However, I am not beyond being phased by a particularly good question about how statistics work.  After our presentation, a very nice teacher approached me  and asked what she thought was a really stupid question.  To make the point about independent effects in a setting with controls, our presentation asserts that the studies we cite create, through statistics, sets of identical twins, where everything about two people is exactly the same--same parents, same demographics, same level of achievement--except that one participates in student activities, and the other does not.

This teacher asked how statistics did that.

And I was stumped.

This Connecticut teacher, being all apologetic, asked a question about how multivariate statistical analysis actually worked, how it actually determined the size of the effect of each independent variable on the dependent variable, how we know that putting any tenth grader into student activities will result in an almost 6 percent gain in his/her scores on standardized math tests.  Keep in mind that I explain this stuff for a living.  I taught my department's methods courses and explained regression analysis more times than I can count.  Student evaluations and faculty review said I was really, really good at it.  And yet the right question at the right time threw me for a loop, at least for a few seconds.

The point to this long, only kinda focused blog entry: this statistics stuff is complicated.  Because I am immersed in stats pretty consistently, I can forget that the logic isn't intuitive.  It's a good experience for me to remember my limitations.

Also, I hope this story gives heart to the rest of the Alliance Ambassadors, who don't have the statistical training that I do.  Before our presentation this week, Todd said he was glad I was there, because the research findings confuse him.  Yet I saw Todd do an exceptional job explaining every statistical concept in the presentation.  One need not be able to explain every sophisticated nuance of statistics to understand and use them.  In Todd's case, and in the case of the rest of the trained ambassadors, they understand the notion of controls, longitudinal data, independent effects, and everything else well enough to explain them competently to educated audiences.  They may not be able to stand up at an academic conference and explain everything perfectly, but I am so proud and so impressed  by how much they have learned and are able to share.

Besides, if Todd and the rest of the Ambassadors could explain statistics as well as I could, I would have taught myself right out of a job.  It doesn't pay, but the fringe benefits are fantastic.

Lest the point of "Do the Math" get lost in this discussion of statistics, let me reiterate that we know, beyond all reasonable standard of doubt, that student activities make kids better.  Participants don't have better scores just because activities attract better students.  These things make kids smarter, more motivated, more compassionate, and whatever else you can think of, and we have empirical evidence that will withstand any standard of scholarly scrutiny.

A Valentine for You

Having done a lot of gratitude posts lately, I was a little hesitant to go forward with the following concept for Valentine's Day.  I'm also conscious of not blowing up anyone's spot.  I guess it's ok to put people's names in these blog entries, but I do want to respect the privacy of everyone, especially the people for which I am most grateful.

But then I thought again.  The world needs nothing so much as it needs joy, equanimity, compassion, and kindness.  In that spirit, Happy Valentine's Day to everyone, but especially to the following people.  I'm keeping names out of it, but I'll be as specific as I can so you know when you're getting shouted out.

The Anthem.  Get Your Damn Hands Up

• To my family, for everything ever but especially for their support over the last year.
• To my professional colleagues who have stood by me through the last year.  I learned that the upper boundary of the best behavior from caring, dedicated professionals is much higher than I had thought.
• To my friends  who have been with me from the jump.  I could not have made it through without you.
• To my friends who I just connected with over the past year.  You've made life in North Carolina richer and more fun than I thought possible.
• To everyone who has contributed to my yoga practice ever.
• To all the students I have had the pleasure of teaching.
• To the airplanes and internet providers that keep me close with all of the above.
• To the sun, the moon, the sky, the earth, and the spirit.
• To Lindsey Andrews, whose former FB profile pick I've been looking for an excuse to steal for months.  Words to live by.

11 Things For Which I'm Grateful

1) The grammatical constructions "for which," "to which," and so on.  They make me feel smart.

2) Pitchers and catchers in eight days.

3) Lavoy Allen balling out.  If they really wanna do this thing, the Sixers need toughness and physical play.  Lavoy isn't enough, but he's been a pleasant surprise.  He battles his man on defense on every position, he rebounds, he hustles, and he makes open jumpers.

4) Recently, the Alliance for Student Activites, an organization dedicated to the promotion of the value of student activities for middle school and high school students, launched its "When X=Student Activities" campaign.  This presentation and its accompanying parts are a grassroots effort that will change the public education debate in this country, and I am proud to be a part of this effort.  Please click on the link above and "like" us.

5) The opportunity to work with Bob Tryanski on #4

6) "Postcards from Hell" by The Wood Brothers

7) The staff of the PASC Grove City Gold Workshop

8) David Uzumeri says that Frank Quitely is almost done with his issue of Grant Morrison's Multiversity, which may come out this summer.

9) A semester of leave, which allowed me to submit on Sunday the best article manuscript I have ever written and researched.

10) "This too shall pass, so raise your glass to change and chance.
And freedom is the only law.
Shall we dance?"

11) New opportunities

January in Review

Analytics?  Analytics.  This will be a recurring feature in which I hold myself accountable and review how I did the month before, all in an effort to do better in the future

Days Blogged: 31 of 31, for a 100 percent blog rate

Days Missed, January: 0

Days Missed, 2012: 0

Southern Rap Classic Earned?  Oh, indeed.

Most Viewed Post: Her and Me, January 1st

My Favorite Post: How To Change The World, January 28th

Post I Wish I Had To Do Over: The Ice Cube/Yoga post from yesterday.  I'm in the middle of finishing an article submission of my scholarly work, and I was way too fried to take on something that ambitious.

Three Things I Learned

1. Writing about magic does not go over with my initial audience.
2. TWEDP can be a way to highlight the wonderful things that my friends are doing, and those stories seem to connect with readers.
3. Writing every day is something I can manage.

Three Goals for February

1. Clean up one of my yoga pieces and submit to Elephant Journal.
2. Write about the work to which I am contributing for the Alliance for Student Activities.
3. Write every day.

Reader Ratings: Super.  Thanks for your time and your support.

How to Change the World

Anyone working in the nonprofit or foundation worlds can tell you about the emphasis on proof.  The people with the money necessary to make good things happen want to see evidence that the program they're funding makes a difference, usually in terms of measurable outcomes like higher standardized test scores for kids or rates of employment for adults.  And that's all great.  I'm a quantitative researcher, and I want to see proof of effectiveness too, especially because contemporary statistics provides us with a dizzying array of tools that allow us to measure and isolate effects of various factors.

And yet...

I just read this wonderful Washington Post article about ReWired for Life, the program started by Sonja Sohn, aka Kima from The Wire.  When Sohn started this program, she didn't have a solid research base that informed her approach.  Hell, it's not even clear that she had an approach, beyond a vague notion that the remedial class from Season 4 seemed promising.

What she does have, though, is a commitment to making a difference and the knowledge that the people she wants to help need to be equal partners in the endeavour. Educators know that the single most important step to helping anyone is getting him or her to buy in.  Once they're invested, once they care, you can get somewhere.  Incredibly difficult challenges will still arise, but if the person cares, the two of you can work through it together.  The two of you can figure out where s/he went wrong and how to avoid similar problems in the future.

The foundation of any effective program of uplift has to be a desire to engage.  Engagement is incredibly difficult because real engagement is a two-way process.  If you want to help people, you have to allow them to have a voice in how they want to be helped, and you have to be open to those times when they're going to help you.  Your program is absolutely going to change from what you intended.

I wonder if our focus on measurable impact gets in the way of engagement.  I kind of doubt whether Sohn's program will show statistically significant outcomes, at least in its first few years.  She's working with a very small sample size, and the kids in ReWired are the highest of high risk.  Maybe her biggest "obstacle" to demonstrating her program works is that, right now, she has a purposefully flexible program that changes to meet the needs of her partners, the kids she's trying to help.

Can a flexible program measure its impact in a way that will satisfy people obsessed with the bottom line?  Will enough donors recognize that ReWired for Life and programs like it represent our best chance at truly effective philanthropy and give them the chance to offer the people who need uplift a voice?

I really hope so, because, sh!t, reading about ReWired for Life gave me a great deal of hope.  Big ups, Kima Greggs.

Pain and Gratitude

One of the things I have discovered in the first couple weeks of this project is that it has allowed me to start to talk about things I have previously been uncomfortable talking about.

So.

Let's talk about pain.

If you're a reader this close to TWEDP's inception, you probably know me fairly well, so you know 2011 was an incredibly rough year.  My 2011 ended 8 days ago, as did the Really Bad and Unfair Thing (which we'll call REBUT, because it's funny).  Of course, REBUT may be over, but I have a lot of hurt, anger, frustration, helplessness, disbelief, and fear left.

In short, I have a sadness.

Because I tend to compare things maybe a little too much, I've started to think about the last time I had this big a sadness about me nine years ago.  For all the similarities, the two major differences between 2003 and now are most important.

One, the stuff that happened in 2003 was much, much worse.  At the end of the day, if the people you love are still around, you're doing ok.

Two, I am so much better equipped to deal with pain now.  Age and experience, and the growth and perspective and wisdom that come with it, are just about the most valuable things we can have.  If you're significantly younger than I am, know that it really, truly does get better, not just because tough times don't last but because you start to know that they won't last and you better understand how to bide your time and deal until they end.

Yoga also gets a shout out here.  Through yoga, I have learned to accept what I can't change.  When I was 25, the idea of being really, really sad mad me think I was somehow broken and inferior.  So, in addition to being sad, I was frantic all the time about why I was so sad.  As you can imagine, this combination of sad and frantic did not produce optimal results.

Now, though--ok, I've got a sadness, just like I did before.  That sadness is going to be around for awhile.  I will do everything I can to make sure it leaves as quickly as possible, but I'm not going to try to chase it off with a torch and pitchfork.  It'll be here until it goes, and that's ok.  In the meantime, I might as well make friends with the sadness.  We spend a lot of time reading bad Star Wars books and staring out the window at nothing in particular.  That's what the sadness wants to do, and really, it's not that bad.  I like Star Wars.

Once I accepted the sadness, I could put it into some sort of perspective, which makes it pretty easy to remember that's not all I've got.  I've got the best, best, best mom and dad on Earth.  I've finally got a crew of filthy Durhamites who make the South feel like home.  I've got a disturbingly loyal friend that calls me every day for no particular reason and with whom I share at least 50 percent of a brain.  I've got a yoga community with classes that keep me challenged and instructors who seem to sense when I could really use a compliment.  I've got an organization that trusts little ol' me to follow in the footsteps of a legend and teach 100 high school kids how to be better leaders and people.

LOVINNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN IS WHAT I GOT.

(Couldn't resist)

Yup, I got a sadness, but I got a lot of other things that make the sadness seem far less daunting and ensure the sadness isn't going to stick around.  In the meantime, sad sucks, but it's not the worst thing on Earth.

Being Chelsea Handler is.

And if it's Saturday, PANDAS

Keytar

2011 goes down as the Year I Got Back Into Music.  Thanks to the combination of turntable.fm and the Washed Out album, I have heard more new music in the last six months than at any time...since college?  Ever?  My only worry is that I consume so many songs that none of them register.  Back in the day, I'd live on nothing but bread, water, and a new Pavement album for months.  Now, I get to listen to so many very good things on demand, but am I not giving enough time to the few great songs I hear?

But that, friends, is a  prototypical first world problem.

Besides, I'm not so far gone that I don't recognize a great song when I hear it.  Exhibit A: Teeth's "See Spaces."

Not only is this one of the catchiest songs you can imagine, but it is a great example of how thoroughly Kids These Days have conquered synthesizers.  I came of age in the era where singer/songwriter types were first trying to come to grips with the new musical DNA that hip hop, dance music, and really cool gadgets bequeathed to us.  A lot of mediocre production got very popular with a lot of people who would never tolerate such tripe out of guitar rock.

And, yes, I'm talking about that f###ing Postal Service record.  Shame on you, white people.

Sometime between now and when I last cared, a generation of Kids who were raised on electronic music grew up, so it's part of their DNA.  These Kids get technology and how to use it, get that, in the brave new world, we are all engineers and we can all make amazing, neat sounds with nothing more than a little effort and good knowledge of, I don't know, ProTools or something.  They understand what good production is supposed to sound like in the way that I once understood exactly how a guitar should sound in different situations.

And they're making really awesome music.  Good, creative acts like Atlas Sound use the tech only/always when the track calls for it.  The production fits and enhances the song.  Timbaland at his peak couldn't get a keyboard sound more appropriate for "See Spaces" than Teeth and their producer.