...under the influence...
“I don't take success and failure seriously. The only thing I do seriously is march forward. If I fall, I get up and march again.”
-Kareena Kapoor Khan-
I love March. The month of March, not the stilted walk, or the steady beat of progress, but the calendary denotation of time that holds within it several delights. In March we start spring and save daylight from itself. It is the 3rd month of twelve, the end of our first quarter of the year, and it is filled with fabulous days. Peanut Butter Day on the 1st, Banana Creme Pie Day on the 2nd, and what if cats and dogs had opposable thumbs day on the 3rd. If cats and dogs had opposable thumbs I think we’d take thumb wrestling and door locks more seriously. It would also be madness. March madness.
March madness is what the Men’s and Women’s annual college end of year basketball tournaments are called. The term "March Madness" was first used in 1939 when Illinois High School official Henry V. Porter referred to the original eight-team tournament by that moniker. “A little March madness may complement and contribute to sanity and help keep society on an even keel,” Porter wrote in “Illinois High School Athlete” magazine, per Todd Dewey of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, per Jakob Carmenker of the sporting news journal, per CansaFis Foote of the CansaFis blog.
The madness kicks off when a committee chooses a field of 64 68 teams to compete in the tournament. They rank four sets of teams 1-16 and toss them across different brackets to battle in a single elimination set-up to determine who is the best basketball team of the year. As I watched this year's rankings peter out across the TV screen I couldn’t help but think about this process of ranking, reviewing, and recommending though. It is ubiquitous. Our lives are filled with symbolic and often numeric influence.
When I want to eat out I read reviews and rankings on Yelp or Google or Door Dash or Uber Eats or Bobbito1979’s “Places I think you would like to eat at” newsletter on the dark web (his reads on fast casual sous-vide llama are dynamic). When I order a taxi, my driver and I get reviews of each other on our app. I’m 4.8 because my ankles smell. He is a 4.9 because Brenda from marketing didn’t appreciate the radio choice (Janet Jackson Control on repeat). We are both numbers and decimals because the app sees us as data. I also see myself as hairy, but in the app I’m only seen as a half smiling .jpeg, and in his car I am only seen as a hostage to the beat (Janet Jackson Control on repeat = +.2 stars).
Book stores, wineries, cigar mags, online blogs, and army roles are all ranked and sorted and reviewed and labeled according to a variety of methodologies. We need to rank so much we are even ranking rankings.
https://www.dailydot.com/unclick/top-10-top-10-lists-nobody-asked-for/
https://www.theodysseyonline.com/top-ten-list-of-top-ten-top-ten-lists
https://boingboing.net/2012/01/02/top-ten-top-ten-top-ten-lists.html
https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-top-ten-top-10-lists
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/the-top-10-top-10s-of-2017-a8113016.html
The star is the review iconography of choice for most things we rank. The concept of using repeated symbols for a ranking dates to 1820’s author Mariana Starke's series of travel guidebooks, which used exclamation points to indicate works of art of special value. Miss Starke missed out on using a little self reflection within her symbolic choice for reviewing…the STARke was right there waiting for her!!!!!!! Being inventive does not come easy.
We also rank with numbers and thumbs. Thumbs up or down, or way down, or two at a time pointing up, or just one sideways,. Or on a scale of 1-10, or 1-100, but seldom 1 to 101, or 10 to 20. I would prefer getting ranked 9-99.9 with a naughty nineties scale, made to celebrate Aubrey Beardsley and his dirty comics.
Sometimes we review fractionally, in halves, but not quarters, and never in tenths. And of course we also review and rank with words, saying yes or no, good or bad, and adding adjectives like kind-ofs, or maybes, or slightlys mostly possibly certainly when we are definitely decidedly doubtlessly sure. I think this is precisely where a ranking becomes a review.
Reviews bring you customers. A starless app or hotel may as well not exist. When I need to do something I need to know who has done it and what they have done with it and what are they doing now and where are they going and can I go there too? I mean how can I sleep or eat in starless spaces? And watching a thumbless film is as frightening as a day celebrating the what if scenarios of cats and dogs beginning an opposable ascendance into human form.
They say 72% of potential customers won’t commit to a purchase without reading reviews and that even negative reviews can have a positive effect, increasing sales by 85%. 91% of millennials trust online reviews as much as they trust reviews from friends and family members, which doesn’t really say much because they don’t trust anyone. But using these percentages can help me ascertain the shape of potential truths. I mean 72% of this article is meaningless noise, 95% of this paragraph is worthless information, and 100% of this sentence is filler content.
With rankings, reviews and recommendations holding such a powerful sway in my day to day doings, I wondered what if I could turn the table around here. What if I am not only a man reviewing restaurants and shampoos, but also a man existing as restaurants and shampoos do, ranked, reviewed and real. Maybe one day I can even be a man recommended. To that end I have decided to review myself over a full day of activity…
“You can be a rank insider as well as a rank outsider.”
-Robert Frost-
CANSAFIS FOOTE on MONDAY MARCH 14th 2023
Review by CansaFis Foote.
Sleep – 2 out of 5 Beds
CansaFis slept about 6 hours in total. He fell asleep clutching his dog’s hand on the couch while sucking in the end of Maid In Manhattan (his review of saif film was one 5 second long zippery fart). His neck hurts and let’s just say he was more passed out than tenderly tucked into rest.
Taking a crap – 6 of 9 Baby Wipes
Started the day just a little bit lighter, wordled and crossword puzzled back into the physical realm. You learn a lot about a man based on the way he wipes. Standing, sitting, with paper or wet cloth, on his own or with a friend, sometimes maybe even with a splash or sploosh of water. Basically you just learn if he has a clean asshole or not. But that is a lot. Some might even say too much information.
Dog Walk #1 – 1.4 out of 4 Paws
Took the fur army on a quick muddy jaunt in the hills. Avoided slipping on multiple slip slopes but my cattle dog possibly ate a dead rat foot.
Breakfast – A full michelin star
Gluten free avocado toast dusted in garlic and miso topped with shichimi togarashi avocado slices and chorizo oil fried eggs. I was a baller ass AM cook today.
Computer Work #1 – 44 of 78 keys
E-mails, notes to self, notes to future selfs, planning, meetings, phone calls, appointments, and then some video editing while the mighty KALX blasts in the background. Not as productive as I would like but life is always better when William Onyebear is soundtracking your typey strokes.
Dog Walk #2 - 4 out of 4 paws
A good loop at Sibley Volcanic Regional preserve got the blood pumping, the mind rolling, and the dogs panting and stoked
Computer Work #2 – 64 of 78 keys
A much more focused journey into the world of video editing audio podcasts. Near a total success because I finished an episode. Not quite a success because I am sure I failed somewhere in there.
Exercise – 3 out of 6 feete
Took a quick run around the neighborhood, enough to sweat and observe a man stopping his car so he could get out of it and kick a bush. Whatever that bush did to him I am not sure it deserved such violence, but alas it handled the burst with the stoic resolve only a bush can have.
Reading – 2.43 of 22.26 blogs
I started writing a blog because I kept on reading them and friendster doesn’t exist anymore. Now the web writing keeps leading to me to web reading more. I am in a cycle of never ending word, and now that the robots have gotten involved there is likely no end to the worded bloat this web will become. Let me also this moment to recommend a series of blogs I read this week that were all sorts of fun, interesting, cool and not written by robots…Falling To Systems, Sunday Candy, Mitchell’s Mind-bending Variety Puzzle Brain Dump, Thinking Loudly, Dean's List, Leo's Lemonade, Growth Croissant and Diffuse Attention.
Dinner – 4 of 22 burners
I went lazy and broke out a quick fridge salad and a bag of frozen sweet potato fries. The day decayed my chef sharpness into a dull appetite for greens and ketchup.
Entertainment – 3 of 7 remotes
An episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race was decent rest juice to reflect on a day lacking mystery. I succeeded in routines this day in history, exacting exactly my intentions without stuttering steadily from the course. Maybe tomorrow I can shake weight it up and try firefighting or zipline frisbee.
Writing – 2 out of 2 opposable puppy kitten thumbs
I don’t write with my thumbs, but if I were a cat or a dog who had just grown a pair you are damn right I would. I just wrote this sentence with my thumbs and it took five minutes and three rewrites to get correct. Regardless, I just finished this blog (well I am in progress of finishing it) and for that I am giving myself a flawless domesticated animal thumbs up. I thought I didn’t do anything different today but then I started typing with my thumbs. The magic of the written word helped me to see what I might not otherwise witness. I am becoming a cat and a dog! March Madness!
In summary I don’t think this guy did enough. He did all the stuff I expected him to do with very little variety. I mean maybe try wearing a different pair of socks or putting your hat on backwards. Also you made avocado toast and applauded yourself for such art. Go start a blog in brooklyn or something! You could have swam sideways in the ocean, played a long Kenny G sax solo in the nude, or hunted west oakland street opossum with a mouth blade and some sand paper mitts. But what did you do instead? You hiked, made a salad and wrote this blog? Better luck next time bud. Not sure if I will ever go back because there is a fried fish store down the street with better writing on the menu. I’ll give you a 9 of 99.9 just to play your dirty game and because I also appreciate the dirty comics. Godspeed filthy traveler and good luck with tomorrow!
Sincerely,
Your Pal C. Foote
“I don't read reviews. I haven't read them for probably 30 years. I can't. When they're bad, they're really rough, and when they're good, they're not good enough. You can always find something to stress over.”
-Kevin Bacon-
*author’s note: now I am six degrees removed from the loosefooted Bacon god*
I can’t recommend myself. March has given me madness, but with it as promised, I have also found sanity. Rankings and reviews are a way of putting things into different spaces. Things to eat become stars for other people to see and decide what they will eat and potentially turn into stars or words as well. Every art or business we make is used and consumed and simplified to numbers with fractions and decimals or words with an authoritative self satisfied point of view. My bookstore is a 2½ , my bike ride was a 6.4, my sweater an okay way to keep warm, and my thumbs were a horrible way to type this article.
I came to March seeking madness and might leave March with only order, or an order of something that I then might return, or return to, depending on how many stars it was or should be.
I wish really we could all be stars though, because then we would be all stars, and that I could recommend.
"I mean 72% of this article is meaningless noise, 95% of this paragraph is worthless information, and 100% of this sentence is filler content." Comedy: 3 out of 3 slippery bananas.
This made me laugh just as hard as the first time I read it. Well done as always.
& thank you for the shoutout! How do you know I'm not a robot? 👀