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Why the Impossible Happens More Often

The Noosphere Sculpture by Yves Jeason

I've had to persuade myself to believe in the impossible more often. In the past several decades I've encountered a series of ideas that I was conditioned to think were impossibilities, but which turned out to be good practical ideas. For instance, I had my doubts about the online flea market called eBay when it first came out. Pay money to a stranger selling a car you have not seen? Everything I had been taught about human nature suggested this could not work. Yet today, strangers selling automobiles is the major profit center for the very successful eBay corporation.
I thought the idea of an encyclopedia that anyone could change at any time to be a non-starter, a hopeless romantic idea with no chance of working. It seemed to go against my general understanding of human nature and group interaction. I was so wrong. Today I use Wikipedia at least once a day.
Twenty years ago if I had been paid to convince an audience of reasonable, educated people that in 20 years time we'd have street and satellite maps for the entire world on our personal hand held phone devices -- for free -- and with street views for many cities -- I would not be able to do it. I could not have made an economic case for how this could come about "for free." It was starkly impossible back then.
These supposed impossibilities keep happening with increased frequency. Everyone "knew" that people don't work for free, and if they did, they could not make something useful without a boss. But today entire sections of our economy run on software instruments created by volunteers working without pay or bosses. Everyone knew humans were innately private beings, yet the impossibility of total open round-the-clock sharing still occurred. Everyone knew that humans are basically lazy, and they would rather watch than create, and they would never get off their sofas to create their own TV. It would be impossible that millions of amateurs would produce billions of hours of video, or that anyone would watch any of it. Like Wikipedia, or Linux, YouTube is theoretically impossible. But here this impossibility is real in practice.
This list goes on, old impossibilities appearing as new possibilities daily. But why now? What is happening to disrupt the ancient impossible/possible boundary...?

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Kevin Kelly @'The Technium'

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Billy Corgan gets in a nasty Internet fight with a guitar pedal engineer and trans advocate

Web drama’s heating up again for Billy Corgan, mere weeks after he announced he’ll be heading up a new professional wrestling organization. This time around, the story involves some nasty back-and-forth between the Smashing Pumpkins frontman and a guitar pedal engineer and transgender activist.
After spending money and collaborating to develop a bass pedal specifically for Corgan (per his request) with no feedback, Devi Ever aired her grievances toward the Smashing Pumpkins frontman on the SP forum site, Netphoria.
From there Billy sent out a series of now-deleted tweets about Ever’s “piece of shit” pedals, her business ethics, and her character. As if the childish fight-picking wasn’t enough, Corgan continually referred to Ever as him/her and he/she for being a transgender woman, and he commented on her appearance—as if calling someone an “ugly pig” is ever a relevant retort.
Outside of his public harassment, Corgan took the feud to Facebook, reportedly sending Ever nasty messages about her post, proving that Corgan doesn’t take well to criticism:

you ugly piece of shit...if i ever run into you, anywhere, at anytime, for as long as i live, i will knock your fucking lights out. don’t ever come near me, and if i hear even one more peep out of you in public about me, or the band, or the members of the band, i am gonna sue you for so much you’ll never be able to afford so much as to even make a fucking guitar cable.

Calling Corgan’s tweet about her stolen pedal idea libelous, Ever suggested that Corgan’s fuming was only going to make matters worse for him and his proposed lawsuit. The short reply from Ever sent Corgan into an even less comprehensible retort, where he wrote:

you fucked up, you know it, so eat shit, shut the fuck up and accept you’ve attacked someone who tried to HELP YOU. but addicts and self-destructive people like you who HATE THEMSELVES must turn their hate out. if this is what you have to do to not kill your unhappy self, well then i’d say it was a wise decision. beyond that, you are fucking lame, dumb, and so so ugly.

With assault threats now thrown into the mix, Ever posted a nearly 20-minute Youtube video explaining her side of the story—paying special attention to transgender rights and the disrespect Corgan had shown for them.

Anna Gross @'A.V. Club'

Once upon a life: George Pelecanos

My father's diner, the Jefferson Coffee Shop, was a simple, 27-seat affair in Washington DC, open for breakfast and lunch – coffee and eggs in the morning, cold cuts and burgers in the afternoon. It was the size of a small train car, with 13 stools covered in orange vinyl, four booths along one wall, a cigarette machine, an open kitchen and a counter illuminated by overhead lamps that my father and I had hung one Saturday. My dad bought the place in 1965, after various jobs in carry-outs and soda fountains, and a stint working for my grandfather at Frank's Carryout, a soul-food eatery and beer garden. The Jefferson, on 19th Street, was my father's pride. I still have a cherished photo of him in his apron, standing over the grill, spatula in hand, smiling. Pete Pelecanos was never happier than when he was running his magazi.
I started working for my dad as a delivery boy when I was 11 years old. At the diner, our all-black crew consisted of a grill woman, one waitress, a sandwich maker and a dish washer. Southern soul and gospel played on the radio all day long, giving me my music education. The lunch counter was an uncrossed line, with mostly white professionals on one side, blacks and Greek-Americans on the other. Intellectually, I was too young to understand the dynamic, but on a gut level I knew where I stood.
As happens for many fathers and sons, we grew apart as I hit my teens. My personal profile was not atypical for the blue-collar neighbourhood where I was raised. I played pick-up basketball, drove a muscle car, listened to funk, rock and soul, attended many concerts, chased girls, drank beer, smoked weed until my head caved in, and underperformed at my school, where half of the kids did not go on to college. I was pulled over by the police many times, got in fights and found all kinds of trouble. When I was 17 I accidentally shot a friend in the face with a .38 Special police handgun that my father had bought on the black market. I was skipping school at the time in my parents' house. When my dad walked through the door that night, he dropped the bags he was carrying as he saw my friend's blood splashed upon the living room walls.
I don't know what my father thought of me then, but it's safe to say that he was not proud. He was a tough, handsome guy, an ex-Marine who had fought in the Pacific, but quiet, with nothing to prove. I was a skinny dude with a shoulder-length, white-boy Afro, sporting flannel shirts, ripped Levi's and suede Pumas. I could not have been what he had hoped for in a son. I know he loved me; I also know that I must have been a tremendous disappointment to him at the time. Inwardly, I wanted to please him, but I was who I was.
In December 1975, after a dance, my dad took a bunch of friends over to the Jefferson to cook them a late-night breakfast. I witnessed his joy as he prepared the food, but as I watched him perspiring through his shirt I thought: he's working too hard. A couple of days later, at the age of 54, he had a heart attack.
My mother sat me down in the kitchen of our split-level home. We had no insurance for our business, no savings, and probably little in the way of health insurance. I was to quit university and take over the running of the diner. Though I hadn't worked there in years, I had to summon what I remembered and make it happen. There wasn't any choice. I was about to become the breadwinner for my family and I was 18 years old. The next day, I took over the business.
It was rough going at first. I had to be up to greet the ice man and the bread man at 5.30am. I had to manage our adult crew, and I was not much more than a kid. I had to learn every aspect of the business and work every station, because we were often short-handed. And I had to learn how to deal with customers.
Every night I took the cash home and gave it to my mother. I was never paid a dime. It wasn't unjust: after paying the food brokers and staff, there was no money left. I began to understand that my father had worked so hard all those years for very little in return. His diner paid the bills, kept the roof over our heads and fed us, but there was nothing extra for him. There would be no extra for me.
It sounds like hardship but actually it was fun. I didn't want to be a student, and this was my way out. I was told by a customer that I should take the place over permanently, as "your people are good at running restaurants". The ethnic slag aside, he was right. It did feel natural. I turned 19 and began to inhabit my role of junior businessman. I enjoyed the company of a downtown secretary who was 13 years my senior. I got used to waking up in darkness after a few hours' sleep. Sometimes, when I had partied with my friends deep into the night, I didn't sleep at all. I took pride in making it into work at the appointed hour.
My favourite time was just before dawn, driving to work on 16th Street in my gold Camaro, the windows down, smoking a Marlboro Menthol, listening to the glorious music coming loud from my Pioneer 8-track deck and speakers: Springsteen's Born to Run, Mayfield's Super Fly, Al Green's Call Me, Bowie's Station to Station. The tunes made movies in my head and jacked up my imagination. I had a crazy idea that I might write stories some day, perhaps make films. But how would an unconnected Greek kid get there? If my plan was naive, it didn't matter. The dream sustained me.
Later that summer, when my father returned to work, I took off with my pal Steve Rados and wandered around the south on various adventures of the mind and flesh. That year – 1976 – was the most thrilling of my life. And, I know now, the most important.
Many fathers and sons never get to reconcile their differences or come to an understanding that fills the gap between love and expectations. I'm forever grateful to have had the opportunity to prove myself to my dad. After I took over the diner, the look in my father's eyes went from disappointment to respect. He never even had to say it – I knew. Not that I had matured by leaps and bounds. Nine years later, months before I got married, I was arrested for assault, fleeing and eluding the police, driving on the sidewalk and other charges after a fight in a parking lot, fuelled by alcohol and adrenaline and culminating in a high-speed chase. So, yeah, it took me a long time to grow up. But to my father, even with all my nonsense, I was a man.
Every so often I take the metro down to Dupont Circle, walk into the old diner and have a seat on one of the orange stools. The current owner has switched the menu to gourmet fare and changed the name, but the space is unchanged. The lights my father and I installed still hang over the counter. I order my food, eat my meal and look towards the grill, where I can see my baba in his apron, spatula in hand, flipping burgers and smiling. I'm not having visions; I'm visiting my dad.
@'The Guardian'