The NYT Sunday Styles section reviews The Substance of Style. Penelope Green begins with a personal anecdote, in which a classic functional problem (computer ergonomics) leads to an opportunity for greater aesthetic value as well:
Two weeks ago, my hands stopped working, the result of too many hours spent at a laptop. Proper ergonomics, I soon learned, requires a separate keyboard and mouse.
At Digital Society, 60 East 10th Street (Broadway) in Manhattan, there were choices: utilitarian-looking keyboards and mice in beige plastic, and the Apple versions, in this year's signature white, afloat in clear plastic--deliriously beautiful, and at a premium. The Apple keyboard was $12 more than its beige counterpart; the mouse, $29 more. I waffled for a good 10 minutes. Guess which equipment I bought?
I'll be in NYC through Wednesday on my book tour. Blogging will most likely be light, as I've discovered it's hard to find the time and Internet access amid book activities. But I will try to post something daily.
Posted by Virginia Postrel on September 20, 2003 • Comments
Imagine you're a graphic designer or marketing executive who's heard me speak and wants to buy The Substance of Style. You go to Amazon to look for the book, and on the page you find a truly unexpected list of presumably similar books:
Customers who bought this book also bought:
What on earth is going on? What does The Substance of Style have to do with Orwell, or immigration, or trade, or regrettable food????
You, dear blog readers, undoubtedly know the answer: These are all books purchased online by people who read blogs. Because a relatively small number of purchases can change which books overlap, Amazon purchasing patterns may--or may not--mirror more general book-buying patterns. When I interviewed Austan Goolsbee for my recent NYT column, he told me about a children's book he and a colleague often buy as a baby gift. From time to time, the Amazon recommendations on its page include not just children's books but titles like The Economics of New Goods, a (quite interesting and influential) volume put out by the National Bureau of Economic Research. Not exactly kiddie lit.
Posted by Virginia Postrel on September 18, 2003 • Comments
For the 10 of you who didn't catch it on InstaPundit, Glenn Reynolds has a fun column applying the ideas in The Substance of Style to the mysterious success of Build A Bear stores for kids.
Posted by Virginia Postrel on September 18, 2003 • Comments
Skip Oliva blogs about a classic case of using licensing law to block entrepreneurial innovation:
In New York State, it is against the law for individuals to sell apartment rental listings without a special "apartment information vendor" (AIV) license, which is separate from a general real estate broker's license. The AIV law was passed in the late 1970s to combat potential fraud in the rental market; for example, individuals might sell repackaged newspaper rental listings as original compilations. The AIV law places substantial burdens on legitimate businesses, however, such as mandatory refunds on request and a ban on advertising specific properties.
In 1992, LaLa Wang started MLX.com, an online multiple listing service (or MLS) for customers looking to rent apartments. In most markets, real estate brokers form an MLS to combine their individual listings into a single, shared database. The traditional MLS concentrates resources in the hands of the brokers. New York City, however, is one of the few major markets to lack an MLS (in part because New York's notorious rent control laws create an artificial supply shortage that make high-commission rentals too valuable a commodity for brokers to share with one another). Wang's service changed all that. Not only did MLX create a de facto MLS, it did so in a more open platform than a traditional service: Customers could directly access the MLX database via a password protected account.
New York officials, and their political allies in the traditional real estate industry, used the AIV law to try and shut Wang down. They claimed that Wang needs an AIV to operate her service. But the Internet-based MLX service is merely a forum to exchange rental listings, not the type of self-contained lists that were the intended target of the AIV law. Wang's service is no different than a newspaper that runs apartment listings, yet New York officials acknowledge newspapers do not need an AIV license to operate.
Read the whole thing.
Posted by Virginia Postrel on September 18, 2003 • Comments
Wizbang's advice for new bloggers, Wizbang: How To Get An Instalanche, has been much linked to because of its sound advice. But I particularly liked this less serious tip: "Get a cool last name like Kaus, Postrel, Drezner, or Chafetz," not just because my last name is on the list but because, unlike those other bloggers, I wasn't born with my cool last name. I got it from Steve. And his Ellis Island ancestors essentially made it up, shortening their original last name. So all Postrels are fairly closely related to each other. And I'm the only Virginia. Pretty cool.
All of which leads to my response to the NYT Vows page's insulting boilerplate "the bride will be keeping her name": I love my father, but I chose my husband. Plus I legitimately get the initials V.I.P.
Posted by Virginia Postrel on September 18, 2003 • Comments
My facialist/waxer/all-round grooming aide Denise is one of those newly self-employed people who make Timesmen gloomy and bloggers like InstaPundit and Kausfiles sit up and take notice. (By way of background, scroll down to the September 7 entry on Kausfiles and check out the "cottage industries" entries on GlennReynolds.com.) Recession or no recession, she decided to quit her spa job and go into business for herself, starting about a month ago. She rents a room in a suite of people in related businesses--hair stylists, colorists, massage therapists, etc. These microentrepreneurs share some tastefully decorated common spaces--restrooms, a laundry room, seating in the hallways--but furnish their own small facilities, buy all their own supplies, and manage their own affairs. It's a clever real estate arrangement, well suited to these small aesthetic businesses.
Late last week, one of the other tenants told Denise that an inspector from the state cosmetology commission was on the premises. In her two decades in the field, it was the first time she'd ever seen of an inspector, but Denise wasn't worried. Her cosmetology license is up-to-date, and her facilities are immaculate. (She's a bit of a clean freak.)
Little did she know that the state requires an "independent contractor's license," which entails no additional qualifications, merely a $65 fee. This license is, as far as I can tell, purely a shakedown. You pay your money and give them your address. The license has nothing to do with either professional qualifications (that's the cosmetology license) or tax payments (that's another state department). But those $65 fees add up. And if you don't have the independent contractor's license, you get socked with a $500 fine--precious working capital Denise had planned to use for supplies. (Her landlord got hit with a $1,000 fine for each contractor who lacked the required license.) She is not a happy entrepreneur.
After a bit of rooting around, I managed to find some some mention of the independent contractor's license on the state cosmetology commission's website. But it would be very easy to overlook that information, which isn't featured on the home page. From a first glance, you'd think the commission was concerned with professional qualifications and protecting the public from bad perms and mangled manicures. But you'd be wrong.
This harassment is happening in business-loving, entrepreneur-celebrating Texas. It persists because this sort of petty bureaucratic hassle--and the associated hidden taxes--is so routine that it doesn't constitute "news" and hence never becomes a political cause. But it's stifling business expansion just when the economy most needs it, and it's punishing bold, productive people.
Posted by Virginia Postrel on September 16, 2003 • Comments
Reader Skip Oliva, president of Citizens for Voluntary Trade writes:
One price control on reimbursement rates that gets no discussion nationally is the FTC and DOJ's use of antitrust law to prevent physicians from organizing to negotiate with managed care plans. For example, if a group of pediatricians in a region get together and jointly negotiate with the dominant HMO to stop reimbursing them below cost for administering child vaccines (I'm taking this from a real case), the FTC would deem that an antitrust violation, since the doctors are not "competing" sufficiently.
Under a 1993 FTC-DOJ policy, physicians that wish to jointly assert their economic power in negotiations with managed care payors can use one of three options. One option, called withholds, is illegal in many states. The second option, capitation, always results in financial losses for physicians. The final option, known as the messenger model, is so ineffective even the FTC and DOJ can't tell you exactly how to comply with the requirement.
Obviously its nonsensical for a bunch of antitrust lawyers to decide there are only three lawful methods of "competing" in the managed care market. But that's the point--they don't want doctors competing; they want them losing money to help the managed care plans lower costs. The magic word in the FTC-DOJ policy is "risk-sharing"; if the doctors don't assume nearly all of the financial risk, they are presumed criminals in the eyes of the law for trying to harm the "free" market.
The other problem with this policy is that nobody knows what the "correct" market rate is. Most private managed care plans calculate their reimbursements as a percentage of the Medicare reimbursement level (a figure known as RBRVS). For example, an HMO might offer a physician group a contract for 120% of RBRVS. If the physicians get together and counter-offer 130%, the FTC will step in and prosecute the physicians for essentially price gouging. The government's policy is inconsistent, however, because it's unclear at what RBRVS level the FTC and DOJ will rule the prices too high.
One final note: Although this policy has been in place since 1993, the enforcement has only stepped up since Bush's FTC chairman took over two years ago. Right now we're seeing about one physician group a month "settle" with the FTC under this policy (the DOJ generally cedes this are to the FTC, but they did conclude one case last year). By our internal count, the prosecuted groups included more than 6,000 physicians. That's a lot of folks running around violating antitrust laws.
Posted by Virginia Postrel on September 16, 2003 • Comments
Billy White's note about guitar aesthetics brought forth emails from musician readers, many of which picked up such TSOS themes as the nature of authenticity, the relationship between technology and aesthetics, and aesthetic improvements as a form of material progress.
Setting the stage, Bryan Castaneda passes on this quote from Wired's October cover story, "Super Producers":
" 'Our attraction to equiment has a lot to do with the way it looks', says [Tim] Goldsworthy [one half of the duo DFA]. 'You're surrounded by this stuff all the time.' Aside from a Macintosh G4 and a sequencer, DFA uses mostly predigital gear. But technology still plays a role in shaping the pair's signature sound. 'Thank God,' says Goldsworthy, 'for eBay.'"
Todd Fletcher writes:
The Les Paul post reminded me of trends among the electronic instruments that I play.
I've been playing electronic music for 20 years. Here's a picture of the first synthesizer I bought, in 1984:
And here's my latest purchase, from few months ago:
It's becoming common for manufacturers to hire European design firms to create the front panel now, something that would have seemed bizarre in 1984. The trend for style began with a Sweedish company in 1995 or so when they made a very red keyboard (prior to that, the color shemes were designed by Henry Ford, as you can see in the first picture):
Now, I wouldn't buy a lousy sounding instrument that looks great, but a great-sounding instrument that also looks great has a much better chance of getting my money.
Exactly. When technical quality is consistently good, people look for other sources of additional value--and aesthetics often tops that list.
Finally, Martin McClellan tells a fascinating story about aesthetics and authenticity:
I had to write after reading your post about the Les Paul story. I managed a very large used-guitar shop here in Seattle for nearly 7 years. Two stories came to mind while I read the post:
1. An old timer came into the shop to get some of his guitars worked on. He told us about working at the Gibson factory in the 70's. One day he was shown a flat of Les Paul bodies with the necks already glued on. Some had finish sprayed on, some didn't even have the necks shaped and curved from the raw block. His boss told him that these were flawed guitars, and his job? Run them all through the band saw. He did, he said, crying the whole time at having to destroy something so beautiful.
2. Another day a guy came in to try some amps, and with him he a large, heavy road case--the kind designed to keep a guitar safe in any type of transit. He popped it up on the counter, opened the top, and sitting there was a '58 flame top Les Paul in pretty good shape. If this were a movie, rays of golden sunlight would have shot from the case with a chorus of angels "aaaaaahhhhhhh"-ing in the background. I asked gingerly if I could inspect the guitar, and he gave his permission. I picked it up, and looked it over head to toe. Now, in the vintage guitar world, authenticity is king. A fine guitar that has been refinished could be worth considerably less than its counterpart with badly damaged original finish. Also, guitar parts are a large part of the equation--not only for value, but dating the guitar, making sure it's authentic, stock, etc. I spent 10 minutes with this guitar, and it was perfect. Every part on it was stock, the serial number and stamping impression were right, the nitro cellulose finish aged exactly as it should. The pickups, the knobs, the tuners, the wood on the neck, the flame maple on the top, the fade of the sunburst--all perfect. I'll bet if I pulled the wiring harness and looked at the potentiometers they would have a the right date too. But then I looked up at the musician and he had a thin, wry smile. "It's a fake" he said, and unscrewed the back panel that holds the electronics to show us the stamp of the maker.
Turns out there is a guy in Canada making perfect reproductions of these guitars. He makes them, ages them and sells them to people who can't afford the real deal. His price? $5000. And he's backed up for a few years, from what this musician told me. You can get a lot of guitar for that price, but maybe not a real sunburst, and if you want the real deal, this is the next best option. I always had good radar for guitars that are fake, or have been altered, and this one sent up no warning bells. It was a dead ringer for the original.
But mostly, the idea that a secondary market for these guitars that have been priced out of the reach of most professional musicians is an interesting phenomena--certainly one we see a lot with cheap (and some not-so-cheap) factory knock-offs of famous guitars. Outside of the guitar world, I think of the mass printing of famous paintings as posters, but the interesting thing about the guitars is that these aren't necessarily replicas in the standard sense, they are as much a piece of art and craftsmanship as the original Les Pauls were. They are truly a labor of love, no matter the price. They are the work of a true artisan.
Thanks to everyone who wrote in. The great thing about the subject of TSOS is no matter how much I learn about it, there's still an unexplored area--in this case, the look and feel of musical instruments.
Posted by Virginia Postrel on September 16, 2003 • Comments
The Substance of Style gets its first negative review, (predictably, if I'd actually thought about it) in The New York Observer. Josh Patner, who is "writing a book about his adventures in the fashion business," doesn't approve of my unsnobby, and insufficiently trendy, take on aesthetic pleasure and meaning. For him "style" is a mark of personal superiority and neither I nor the people I write about have it. Maybe if the book were called "the substance of aesthetics" he'd get it. Or not. At any rate, I'd love to lock him in a room with Tom Carson, the Esquire columnist who reviewed TSOS in the October Atlantic.
In this article from the NYT Sunday Styles section, I'm quoted on why fashion is no longer cool (or why, to put it another way, people like Patner are so unhappy these days):
"Traditionally, we thought of fashion as something that came from houses, editors, designers, experts, and that has very much gone by the boards," said Virginia Postrel, the author of "The Substance of Style: How the Rise of Aesthetic Value Is Remaking Commerce, Culture and Consciousness" (HarperCollins), a book that examines the cultural obsession with aesthetics.
"Part of what made fashion seem like high school," Ms. Postrel said, was the existence of " 'in' groups, 'in' people, who knew and decided what was cool."
In other book news, columnist Suzanne Fields of The Washington Times writes of "women--and men--who rarely pause to accessorize crowd[ing] into the conference center at the American Enterprise Institute" for my talk. If New York is the land of style snobs, Washington is, stereotypically, the opposite. But the questions after my talk in fact indicated a keen interest in the subject--including not just the big economic and social questions but, inevitably, the color of my fingernail polish ("I'm Not Really a Waitress"). You can watch the talk here, assuming that, unlike me, you can get Microsoft's Media Player to work.
Also spinning off from the AEI talk, Arnold Kling applies aesthetic analysis to the changing economics of college educations.
Posted by Virginia Postrel on September 16, 2003 • Comments
Pejman Yousefzadeh points me to his post on Edward Teller's death, which contains a link to this Samizdata post.
A friend writes about Teller: "When I spent a year at Hoover, I remember asking his thoughts about the explosion of scientific genius that came out of Hungary (ie. Von Neumann, Szilard, Teller, etc.) His answer: 'First you had to have been a Jew, and second, you had to leave or be forced to leave Hungary.'"
Update: Rand Simberg posted a short item on Teller's death (and life). So did Jay Manifold.
Posted by Virginia Postrel on September 16, 2003 • Comments