Proto-Punk and The Stooges

William Sundwick

Rock 'n Roll started this way in the 1950s. You had poor, unknown, young musicians who had a desire to make music for other young people ... especially, at the beginning, for dancing. But, since it became apparent, early, that many of the young fans weren't just interested in dancing, but also listening to the music (with or without physical movement), records starting being pressed. Then, radio stations began playing the music. 

People started making money! Eventually, the raw power, the African inspired beat, and traditional song lyrics, was deemed by some entertainment conglomerates as a marketable commodity. Singles, recorded cheaply on 45 rpm vinyl discs, sold for a price low enough that teenagers could easily buy them without much budgetary notice from even hard-pressed families. Once they were "promoted" on corporate radio stations (supported by advertising), big business resulted. Some bands gained national reputations, and could tour ... drawing large crowds in concert venues. 33 1/3 rpm albums, comprising 10 or more "tracks" began to replace the inexpensive singles. The appeal for the music soon came primarily from listening, not dancing.

Jazz and Folk Become Rock 'n Roll

Jazz and folk music, from the late forties on into the 1950s, had established different audiences. Jazz buffs were older, college plus for the better educated; or, if not, they had grown up with the Big Band jazz of the thirties and forties, which represented their own youth. Folk music also had pre-war origins; but, unlike popular jazz, it centered around experiences of a poor, oppressed, people. It may have been a rural white experience, in Appalachia, or a black experience, also mainly rural Southern, in those days. By the 1950s, there was beginning to be a clash between the demographic groups who favored jazz versus those favoring folk. Jazz was considered, by this time, to be authorized by the middle class norms of American society. In short, it became bland. Folk music, thanks to people like Woody Guthrie, became associated with a left-wing alternative (clearly NOT authorized by a HUAC-dominated American political environment!). 

Into this arena burst that early youth-centered dance music, amplifying African-American beats and blues lyrics. It was named "Rock-and-Roll" by Billboard magazine, and was associated with popular dance music by Cleveland DJ Alan Freed. It came from black gospel and folk, from jazz dance music, and from country ballads (generally called "rockabilly"). It was simple, primitive, and mostly without commercial motivation. It was music intended for the enjoyment of the audience. Soon, it became music that an entire generation could associate with its own identity. These were white kids now living in suburban communities. Why they chose an identity celebrated previously by black folks must have had something to do with social power structures in mid-century America. The kids were the "havenots," aspiring to become "haves." But, to get to that status, the young fans needed to overcome much resistance, especially from their elders. Their music was the vehicle that could inspire them to keep fighting, fighting for themselves, to gain something unknown to their parents.

But, things began to change, as rock 'n roll became more widespread, and commercially successful. As it entered its second decade, rock 'n roll (now starting to be called simply "rock") was attracting a different audience. They were more upscale, college students (previously followers of modern jazz), a demographic now rather far removed from the baser origins of dance music. They also preferred to listen to more melodious, pleasant, sounds ... like those from the Beach Boys, or the Beatles. 

The Revolt Against "Rock"

The commercial market for popular music was becoming far more lucrative. Record labels were now giving big contracts to bands who managed to sound like what the executives of those labels thought would "sell." As always seems to happen in the dialectical world in which we live, a counterculture emerged. Just as the original rock-and-roll fans were a counterculture to their parents, a new counterculture was setting itself up in opposition to those contemporaries who seemed to have lost touch with the real roots of their art. The original rough, even sexually inspired, beat, the brazen saxophones, the black-sounding vocals, were being replaced by complex melodies, possibly two guitars with background keyboard, and generally more "soothing" vocals.

Something new, or perhaps, retro, was needed. It had to return to simplicity. It had to communicate some primitive passion ... even anger. Where the dominant singing style had become "crooning", the new paradigm needed to sound more like "snarling." In some ways, it was like evolving tastes in automobiles, at least in the U.S. The old tastes were for ostentation .... chrome and tail fins. The new taste was for power and speed, smaller in size, lighter, but much faster! 

The musicians who felt this way did not have a club of their own at first, they didn't even know what to call themselves, but they did have common influences on their musical style. They all liked Chuck Berry, but despised The Platters. They may have admired early Rolling Stones songs, and stage presence, but had only disdain for the clean-cut Beatles personas of the mid-sixties (Ed Sullivan vintage). 

Rock commentary has become obsessed with stylistic labels over the last thirty years or so (since "rock" has been deemed worthy of serious cultural and artistic critique). A style of rock music which most historians of the genre associate with the mid-seventies to early-eighties is called "punk." It was created simultaneously in the U.S. and U.K. The biggest name bands of this genre were on both sides of the Atlantic, The New York Dolls and The Clash are probably the first that come to mind. The Sex Pistols, in Britain, may have reached similar acclaim in the early eighties. These bands all seemed to be saying similar things about their social and artistic milieu. The dominant popular music of the day, according to them, had become far too burdened with technical matters, and divorced from real feelings.

Proto-Punk

But, these well-known bands had precursors, starting in the late sixties. The revolt against the homogenization of rock, and the desire to return to a simpler, more primitive, beat may have begun solely in the United States. There has been a new label  assigned by rock historians to a group of artists personified by three American bands, one from New York, and two from Detroit. The original "proto-punk" band, as the three are now known, was the one from New York, first promoted by Andy Warhol --The Velvet Underground. It was formed by Lou Reed and John Cale. Reed was an English Lit major at Syracuse University, with a penchant for the beat generation American authors. Cale, somewhat older, had been a devotee of John Cage and Sun Ra (avant garde electronic classical and jazz, respectively), but had prodigious musical talent, himself, playing several instruments. He was a Welsh immigrant to New York, while Reed was a middle class kid from Westchester County, who had suffered a traumatic childhood. Together with a bass player and a female drummer, they put together what today would be called a "garage rock" band, in the mid-sixties. They were discovered by Warhol, who was looking for a vehicle to promote his traveling show of films, "The Exploding Plastic Inevitable." He probably had a vision of the kind of music he wanted for his show, and VU matched it. Cale's penchant for the avant garde, and cacophonous dissonance, often with unusual instruments, made great counterpoint to Reed's flair for language, as the songwriter/storyteller of the group. After a few years, however, the resulting artistic tension between the two led Cale to leave. Reed carried on with the others for a while, then decided to launch a solo career.

What did John Cale do when he left The Velvet Underground? He began looking for struggling young bands that might be receptive to his outrageous, experimental, avant garde predilections. One such band, located in Ann Arbor, was The Stooges. They had just been signed by Elektra Records, the same label that did The Doors, and other big name rock acts, but they had yet to produce their first album.  Another Detroit band, the MC5 (for "Motor City 5"), was signed at the same time by Elektra, but was already well known locally. They were offered $20K to The Stooges $5K.  Cale agreed to produce The Stooges first album. Front man Iggy Pop had been experimenting early with avant garde sounds. and unusual souding non-instruments, that would clearly draw Cale's interest.

MC5 had created some buzz in the fledgling rock media, mostly for their own outrageous brand of anger, raw rock 'n roll beat, and strong anti-establishment viewpoint -- in the late sixties, this took the form of actual political advocacy for left-wing groups like the Black Panther Party. They were clearly mentors for Iggy, and his band members, the Asheton brothers (Ron and Scott), and Dave Alexander. The musical style of both bands was similar, harking back to early rock and roll sounds: simple guitar chords, now heavily amplified, with feedback, bass rhythm guitar, and drums. MC5's songs used rather traditional blues lyrics, but Iggy Pop had more affinity for teen-age alienation, and in some noteworthy cases, a real sense of the malaise of industrial America, befitting his Michigan background. He was born in 1947, in Muskegon, as James Osterberg. Iggy Pop was a stage name he invented for the band, after attending an early MC5 concert in Detroit. Rob Tyner, of MC5, eventually starting using Iggy, and his band, as openers for them. Hence, the two bands were discovered simultaneously by Elektra, in 1968. 

Enter, The Stooges

It was The Stooges more adventurous musical content, however, that drew the attention of both John Cale, and later rock music critics. MC5 built a counterculture following, especially after an obscenity flack around their signature song, "Kick Out the Jams." (Detroit's premier department store chain, J. L. Hudson Co., refused to stock any Elektra records as fallout ... down went Hudson's!). But, it was Iggy Pop and The Stooges who blazed the path which later led to what rock commentators would label "punk." In a very real way, they were the first punks! The avant garde style of Cale did not last past their first, self-titled, album, however. 

By the time their third album was released, in 1973, they had attracted the attention of yet another rock music star with an interest in finding new, raw talent ... that album, "Raw Power," was produced by David Bowie. Pop and Bowie had become friends since the two had met at Max's Kansas City in New York, two years earlier. It was primarily Pop's outrageous concert demeanor that most of his fans grabbed. Performing bare chested, he was known to have allowed himself to be hoisted overhead on the hands of the audience, smearing peanut butter on his chest, or walking barefoot over broken glass on stage.

But, from the viewpoint of a rock historian, perhaps the most significant feature of The Stooges was the simple, primitive, retro rock 'n roll beat of their songs, and the banal ... even boring ... nature of the lyrics. None of the poetic flourish of many Bob Dylan-inspired songwriters, or of a Lou Reed. No, Iggy Pop songs weren't fancy, but they remind some of us of just what it was like growing up in places like a typical Detroit suburb, or Flint. The sameness of the routine, the drabness of daily life, in that industrial flatland. Here are some examples:

No Fun (by Scott Asheton) --

      No fun, my babe

      No fun

      No fun to hang around

      Feelin' that same old way

      No fun to hang around

      Freaked out

      For another day ...

put it together with the minimalist music: No Fun

Or, 1969 --

     It's 1969 OK all across the USA

     It's another year for me and you

     Last year I was twenty one I didn't have a lot of fun

     And now I'm gonna be twenty two I say oh my and a boo-hoo

     It's 1969 OK all across the USA ... 

with similar chords: 1969

Not much to stir the imagination here. It seemed the very repetitiveness, the drone, especially at loud volume, that was the message. One song from the John Cale produced debut album stands out as the signature, however: "I Wanna Be Your Dog". More than any of the others, this song manages to muster some urgency, perhaps inspired by Cale, with a stabbing pain from keyboard throughout, and the crescendo fuzzed guitar chords at the close. The lyrics suggest that happiness may come only by descending to the level of a pet ... as he lays "right down in my favorite place", where he can close his eyes and close his mind. Listen here.

Raw Power, and the Decline of Punk

The David Bowie produced third album, Raw Power, is generally even darker than the debut album. While the Cale produced work emphasizes monotony, a theme in Raw Power is aggression. An example:

Search & Destroy --

      And I'm the world's forgotten boy

      The one who's searchin', searchin' to destroy

      And honey I'm the world's forgotten boy

      The one who's searchin', only to destroy, hey

      Look out honey, 'cause I'm using technology

      Ain't got time to make no apology

      Soul radiation in the dead of night

      Love in the middle of a fire fight

      Honey, gotta strike me blind

      Somebody gotta save my soul

      Baby, penetrate my mind ... 

It moves at a faster tempo, more frenetic, than most of the tracks on the first album, but with conventional rock guitar, bass, drums. Here it is: Search & Destroy . 

Some tracks, like "Gimme Danger" are slower, but much more menacing, than anything on their self-titled first album. Here's Gimme Danger .  In 2016, Jim Jarmusch made a documentary film of the same name, about Iggy Pop and The Stooges. It artfully skims over the outrageous stage antics (and personal lives of the band members), focusing more on the music ... an appropriate emphasis, I would submit.

The Stooges struggled for the rest of their career, losing members of the band to drug addiction, and generally finding that Iggy Pop's stage persona started getting old, as the original fan base from the early seventies aged out of the target audience. The next generation apparently had different sensibilities. Gen-X did not have the same frame of reference as their older, boomer, siblings. Also, "punk" itself, evolved into metal, then alternative rock. The rock aficionados had no time for yesterday's stylistic labels ... as long as there were always new bands to write about. It remained material only for the rock historians. Nevertheless, The Stooges were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2010. This honor, as intended, allows them (the survivors, at least) to claim the well-deserved mantle of "icon" with the rock commentariat.

      

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Here's an edited transcript from Ezra Klein's interview of Yuval Harari ...

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Take nuclear arsenal off hair-trigger alert! No good can come of it ...

Celebrating Banality: Why Those Daily Routines Have So Much Power

William Sundwick

Excitement vs. Routine

We all love exciting new experiences. The faster heart beat of the unexpected thrill, or the shot of feel-good dopamine or serotonin neurotransmitters into the brain, are what many of us associate with a life lived "on the edge." Much popular literature, art, and music consider the excitement of danger and unanticipated adventure to be a great virtue.The appeal of newness can reasonably be associated with feelings of optimism, hopefulness. Novelty is undeniably an attractive prospect for many.

But, what about routine? We all engage in daily rituals, or some banal activities, to which we pay little heed, in our imaginations. Why do we continue to practice such ordinary, repetitive, processes in our lives? Indeed, we often conclude that life may amount to nothing more than replacing one pattern of banal activity with another, on and on, throughout our short time on this planet.

The facts are that daily routines contribute much to our psychological, and physical, well-being. They generate comfort and security, predictability -- necessary prerequisites to develop skills, mastery, in life. Just as a corporation seeks predictability in the economy, to enable growth, so, too, do we individuals need that security for us to grow. Routines reinforce our "being present" in reality, as opposed to anxiously contemplating the future, or drowning in regrets about the past. Meditation is often reduced to the most fundamental routine: breathing in, breathing out. Continued practice of routines is what enables mastery of any skill, hence from childhood on, we need routines in order to keep our world functioning. Schools and workplaces emphasize routine for exactly that reason -- mastery.

There exists an interesting circular interaction between "exciting" experiences and banal routines, throughout our lives. On the one hand, moments of excitement can create energy needed later for stamina in maintaining daily routines: those neurotransmitters, and the psychological lift they produce. But, simultaneously, the very repetitiveness of the daily routines frees up creative energy, which can be used to induce further excitement. Not much energy is expended by the banal, unless you let your mind wander to an uncertain future, or become paralyzed by regrets for past mistakes. Hence, a reservoir can be built up, ready for release when the opportunity arises.

Patterns

In addition to the binary system of "excitement" vs. "routine," we also possess a mechanism for controlling the pace and scheduling of routines. Complex lives, those which need variegated scheduling, depending on lots of contingencies, will require another behavioral tool ... "patterns."

Patterns of behavior are really layers of routines. Depending on their sophistication, they may mitigate uncontrolled variability ("uncertainty") with varying effectiveness. While daily routines are governed by clocks ... actual clocks ticking off hours, minutes, seconds; or, lifetime clocks related to aging and stages of life; or, quotidian biological clocks with alarms signaling hunger, tension, lethargy, sleep deprivation, etc. Behavior patterns will trigger the routine when certain combinations of circumstances occur, perhaps not following a predictable clock; but, instead, following the completion of a previous routine, as a precondition. Some of these patterns have no apparent cause, but are totally arbitrary: e.g., I raise the venetian blinds on the clear story windows in my family room on alternating days of the week, depending on when my cleaning ladies are scheduled to come, so that on the day they clean, the blinds are lowered with only slats open. This routine has no purpose other than an alternating diurnal pattern, I could just as easily make sure that the blinds were lowered just before the cleaning crew arrives, and not worry about the other times! Perhaps the behavior pattern helps me remember which week they are due to clean (alternating weeks), but surely I could come up with a less bizarre reminder!

When multiple routines compete for the same space, other contingencies must determine which routine will be followed. I take late evening showers, if I intend to go outside afterwards (usually to unplug my Chevy Volt from the outlet in the driveway, so that my wife doesn't have to do it before she goes to work next morning), I will get dressed, else I will get in my pajamas after my shower! The operative contingency here is whether I plugged the car into the electrical outlet early enough in the evening so that it will be fully charged by the time I finish my shower; which, in turn, may depend on how much battery range was left on the car when my wife or I last returned it to our driveway that day. One can imagine far more complex combinations for many of the decisions they make regarding which routine to activate, and when. Since the logical flow chart for all these behavior patterns could become very elaborate, most of us rely on our own internal circuitry, and memory, to pull up the correct behavior for the contingency at hand. As long as the patterns and routines further our progress toward a goal, we should be okay. But, what about that goal? Where does it come from? ... Whose goal is it, anyway?

Goals

Some goals are low risk projects. We have ready access to the routines, and patterns, that we know can let us reach those goals easily. Little energy is invested in achieving those simple goals. If we have food in the house, and minimal food preparation skills, we will eat. If we find we are dozing off on the sofa, and the clock shows an appropriate hour, we go to bed. If we have an established home exercise routine, and the time and tools to execute it, we will do so. Other goals, however, are more difficult to achieve. Sometimes, it's because the goal is unclear ... why do I have a pattern for opening those venetian blinds, anyway? Sometimes, the skill set needed to achieve the goal is not yet mastered, we may have to learn new routines, or maybe we have lost the skills needed, during the course of our life. We may have simply forgotten the routine  ...  where are light bulbs in this store, again?

Even a routine as silly as opening and lowering those blinds on alternating days, when you break it down to its origins, has the goal of reminding me when the cleaning ladies are coming ... and, keeping track of which day of the week I'm in, as bonus! Some goals are related to maintaining good health, like meals, sleep and exercise. Some goals are selected to foster creativity, like frequency of posts to Warp & Woof blog. And, some patterns of daily routines are invented for the purpose of building structure in life. In these cases, the routines came first, the goals that the routines facilitate only take shape after the routine is established -- does this explain the venetian blinds?

When goals are selected by others for you, your behavior patterns may be ad hoc. Deadlines and priorities may be imposed which determine how the patterns are structured. Which should I do first today, if I know I have to be at a meeting in Alexandria by 7:00? Should I go to the gym, shower, then take a walk? Or, should I start writing my blog post first, then go to gym, and leave the walk optional, as time permits?  Any combination of routines may be possible, inclusion or not, based on priorities or deadlines. Constraints imposed by others tend to govern some people's behavior more than others ... and, at some stages of life more than others (not so much in retirement!).

Banality

There is an annoying lack of authority on the subject of the banality of daily routines. Most everybody agrees that daily routines are good for you. They seem to be responsible for all the positive direction in our lives. The disagreement arises in assigning relative value to different routines. It seems everybody has an agenda, something to sell. Which routines are labeled "good" versus "bad" depends on that agenda. I am left with the conclusion that it is the very banality of the routine which generates its value. Banality has multiple definitions, too. One definition focuses on the "ordinariness" of the banal, Another definition, based on its Old French origins, is "common to all."

If we focus on the banal as being the "ordinary" or "unexceptional", we are confronted by the fact that what's ordinary to one person may be very extraordinary to another. Think about routines for somebody with a disability, versus the able. Perhaps the routines that seem most ordinary are precisely those which we should be most thankful we can call banal! On the other hand, if we accept the definition "common to all," we are now entering the realm of lowest common denominators. Is it fair to say that these routines are at the heart of what makes us human? None of us can survive without them, much like the case of meditation exercises.

Banality, as ordinary, obvious, or uneventful, is often associated with "boring."  Yet, our shared experience in life supports the concept that very interesting, and creative, people can lead lives filled with banal routines. It may even be the banality that spurs their creativity. Conversely, how many boring people seemingly have "exciting" lives, free from such banality? Of course, the dark side of banality is seen in the excessively compulsive person, who can't seem to control the banality of their daily life (like people who have patterns of raising and lowering venetian blinds, which seemingly cannot be altered!).

Yet, there is a school of art, music, and literature which celebrates the banality of daily life. Andy Warhol comes to mind, and more recently, Jeff Koons. Pop culture, in general, is often thought to be a celebration of the banal, and Bob Dylan receiving the Nobel Prize for Literature last year seems to confirm this view.  Last year's indie film "Paterson" has been billed as a celebration of the banal, whose main character is a New Jersey bus driver with no formal education, who becomes a poet. Some even place pornography in the category of banal art. Clearly, then, the banal has its place in the arts. Consequently, it should not be denigrated in our personal lives, and it certainly does not have to be seen as "boring!"

On a personal level, it is impossible to ignore the banal nature of my daily life. It has become even more apparent over the last two years, since I retired from a 42-year career in an office environment at the Library of Congress. Although, clearly, that long career was, itself, a monument to banality. I contend that this mass accumulation of banal activity consuming my entire adult life has been the raw material for sparks of creative energy. And, these sparks have been igniting on a regular basis, all through my life, without my noticing! I haven't noticed mostly because I've been so conditioned to demean the role of the banal.

My Banal Life

These days, routine definitely trumps adventure. Virtually every weekday, I get out of bed, get dressed, unplug my Volt from the outdoor electrical source, retrieve the newspaper from the front yard, kiss my wife goodbye as she leaves for work on Capitol Hill, eat a breakfast consisting of some bakery bread, banana, coffee, and orange juice with my prescription drugs, vitamins, baby aspirin.

This routine only varies by the occasional substitution of Post Great Grains cereal for the bread, and possible elimination of the outdoor unplugging of the car (if I had already done it the night before). The entire routine lasts from about 7:30 - 8:00 until around 9:00. I eat slowly while checking email, recording estimated calories in my Fitbit app (both for breakfast and previous evening's snack), and maybe begin the secondary routine of following my Facebook news feeds and friends' posts.

After making the bed -- and, on Monday or Tuesday, starting my laundry -- the Facebook routine typically fills my morning until it's time for a "second breakfast" sometime after 10:00. This morning snack will consist of Yoplait yogurt (various flavors) and either cereal or bread, with more coffee.

There could be interruptions caused by a need to respond to an email, but this is often the time when I plan the rest of my day ... which routines, and in what order? Wild variations sometimes follow these activities: today I drove to Alexandria, to reconfigure the prison videoconferencing equipment at my church, some days I go to Planet Fitness next, for my standard 40-minute cardio-heavy workout routine, other days, if the weather is nice, I use this block of time for a walk around the neighborhood, and listen to one of several podcasts to which I subscribe.

Whenever I choose to walk around the neighborhood, I will follow one of eight possible routes, some of them can be varied by incorporating portions of another route. On bad weather days, I have been known to get my required steps (Fitbit tells me I should get 10,000 per day) by going to the gym and simply walking on a treadmill while reading a book. Some days, like today, interruptions to my usual routines cause me to jettison the steps ... an example of ad hoc variance of routines.

Lunch consists of a sandwich with cold cuts and one slice of cheese, pickles or cantaloupe, and iced tea or non-alcoholic beer. Every weekday, afternoons will consist of either the gym workout plus shower, the walk, or both. Lunchtime is always between 1:00 and 2:00. Recently, a new routine has been added two days a week, before dinner. At 5:00, on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, I am now expected to pick up my toddler grandson at his family day care provider and play with him at his house until one of his parents returns from work. This is fun, and reminds me of how important routines are -- little Owen gets a written report from his day care center each day which looks EXACTLY LIKE MY DAY! Except, he fills time in the afternoon with a nap ... I don't.

When wife returns from work, around 6:00 or 6:30, sudden retooling for excitement and unpredictability takes over! No telling what may happen next! Dinner typically is not planned until this point, beyond some speculation which may have occurred the previous evening. Now is her time to do all those wonderful routines that I had the whole day to do. I will either spend time with dinner prep during the next two hours, or not, in which case, my creative impulses can either start, or continue where I left off earlier in the day. This very moment is such a time during just such an evening.

Weekends have different routines, since they generally involve my wife as well. Breakfasts for me are the same as during the week, and I have to try harder to squeeze in those health/fitness routines, since it is over the weekend that we go places and do things! Errands must be run, occasionally we must go out to eat, or a movie, or even something more exciting, like theater. Sundays typically include some portion of the day at church, and these days, some Saturdays also include church activities (like this week). Generally, weekends are a struggle to preserve my precious routines of the weekdays, they contain more unpredictable activity, more people interrupting the automatic repetition of my solitary behavior patterns of the week. For this reason, I find creative production more difficult on weekends.

Evenings, both weekday and weekend, have one very dear routine ... interrupted only when there are extreme late nights out, such that we just collapse when getting home. My wife and I always indulge ourselves in watching recorded, or streaming, television in the late evening hours. This ritual never begins prior to 11:30, often not until after midnight. It consists of me closing my browser on my office computer, thus shutting down Facebook for the night, making a snack ... which includes an alcoholic nightcap (beer, wine, or a mixed drink from my Calabrese bartenders' guide), getting into my pajamas, and selecting which of our favorite series to watch tonight! There is a long list of possiblities ... the two of us watch lots of TV, just not when it's broadcast.

It's clear that I am pursuing goals with my banal routines, but many of those goals are never quite realized. It seems that the behavior continues until I feel the goal has been reached, then I may change the routine. Some goals, of course, by their nature, are lifelong motivations: good health, wisdom, and the like. But, others could be achievable, if only we had enough time! Alas, things always seem to interfere with our spending sufficient time "practicing" our routines. And, we are told we are all mortal, anyway.

Hence, we may have to abandon some goals as impractical. This is the sort of thing that causes deep sadness at times, indulging that phenomenon of spending much time reminiscing (regretting) the past, with no payoff except depression. In my life, four lost goals stand out, two due to impracticality, and two because they were successfully achieved, but the associated routines are equally missed for all four: 1) piano, not practical at my age and state of mind, or small muscle coordination; 2) child rearing -- grandchild rearing is not the same, since I won't see the actual results; 3) meetings, that's right, I miss the balm of listening and reporting group endeavors, but I'll call this one successful achievement of the goal, as I may rediscover the goal, social in nature, who knows?; 4) projects, those big, long-term, endeavors which I was responsible for executing, whether alone, or with help from others -- the skills exercised, when successfully applied, always made me feel good. Note that all four of these missed routines, and associated behavior patterns, characterized earlier stages of my life (except piano, which I now concede, I began too late in life).

For the future, it appears that it's necessary to plan our banality.  My future plans include a basement remodeling project, transitioning off the Board of Deacons at my church, perhaps some level of political activism, and grandchild rearing (whatever that entails). All will likely involve new routines, which will need to be practiced, and the complexity of my life won't diminish so much as to obviate patterns of behavior, which will still be needed to facilitate the practicing. Inasmuch as some existing routines will have to be replaced, I will have to prioritize the new over the old, if my new goals are to be achieved ... in my lifetime. I can't contemplate just yet the costs of leaving unfinished goals behind, perhaps it's inevitable that there will be some. I was compelled to leave a record of ongoing activities and projects when I retired from the Library of Congress (it was 2015, after passage of the Federal Records Act). This blog post doesn't count as such a record of my life goals!

Your Banal Life

If my reader is burdened by too many goals being imposed on you by others, try some engineering design of your daily routines. Invent new patterns of behavior, tweak the existing patterns. Don't be afraid to let the banality of tasks release some pent-up creative energy which can be directed elsewhere. If you feel imprisoned by your compulsiveness, try a rational evaluation of how effective your familiar routines really are. Are they the best possible vehicles for achieving your stated goals? Sometimes, you may have to forcibly break a routine (a "bad habit"), even if you remain fuzzy about what its replacement routine looks like. If you are "self-actualized" already in your banality, then congratulations! That means your routines and patterns of behavior are well-suited to meeting your life needs. Keep it up!

But, whatever adjustments you make to your daily routines, remember not to pass up opportunities for excitement, even if the end result might only contribute to your life's banality. That banality enables future excitement!

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This could be Friday's big event ... Merkel v. Trump!

Tesla is actually an old school company ... they use capital to make things!

Don't take this AlterNet story too seriously, unless you see some corroboration ... Strategic Intiatives Group (SIG) in WH sounds like a new conspiracy theory!

Finally, a break in Trump's cabinet ... Mattis concedes climate change is a national security threat!

How to Keep Your Exercise Routine Focused in the Present, not the Future

William Sundwick

Everybody agrees that exercise is an important factor in health, especially as we age. But, who hasn't had difficulty keeping to their ideal exercise routine? It's just too much work, it's boring, I'm too busy, it's too cold or too hot, or rainy outside.

Part of the problem in keeping to a schedule may be goals that are over-ambitious. While true that setting goals can lead to achievement, hence releasing dopamine, making you feel good about yourself, setting goals that are too high leads to failure! Failure is not something that releases dopamine, or any other "feel good" neurotransmitter. There's reason to believe that working out, like dieting, for the purpose of weight loss may not be the best strategy, unless your weight loss goal is very oblique (maybe primarily for weight CONTROL!). My physician has given me oblique instructions like "drop 5 pounds before I see you next time", and it's worked, but that is a pretty modest goal. Likewise, the well-known trap of  "I work out so I'll look good naked" is probably a set-up for failure, if body image is a major detriment to your feeling good about yourself.

My proposal, based mostly on personal experience with exercise over the last 8-9 years (i.e., only since I turned 60, really) is simple: focus on the present, not the future! Much research supports the basic premise that exercise, even moderate exercise, makes you feel good. Being sedentary is something which clearly does NOT release any of the four "feel good" chemicals in your brain: dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, and endorphins. We're not talking about the famous "runner's high" here, that may only happen after an hour or more of very vigorous aerobic, or cardio, exercise, like running. But, even as little as 10 minutes of some motion-oriented activity, like dancing or gardening, can produce measurable increases in the release of some of the neurotransmitters associated with BDNF (Brain Derived Neurotrophic Factor).  It's this category of protein, like anandamide, that allows us to reduce stress, and deal with anxiety and depression, at least temporarily. Studies have demonstrated that groups of depressed patients, when exposed to regular exercise alone, fared better than control groups administered drugs, or combined drugs and exercise. Endorphin release, that "runner's high", doesn't ever make it to the brain, but stays in the blood stream. It's those other neurotransmitters that affect your mood.

While any physical activity has positive benefits for mood, a somewhat more vigorous exercise program is even better. Something on the order of 30 minutes, at least, three to five days per week, is often recommended. This level of exertion does require a modicum of preparation and routinizing, for most of us. I've decided that the most important features of any successful exercise program are the following:

1. do things that feel good, not painful (you shouldn't be "testing" yourself)
2. associate your workout with another pleasurable experience (I listen to my iTunes playlists only when I'm at the gym, and I love that music)
3. set goals only slightly hard to meet (mine are simply the number of days per week I go to the gym ... my workout, once there, is always the same)
4. measure your success after the fact ... not while you're working out (I weigh myself once a week, and manually add calories burned at gym to my Fitbit app, along with calories consumed wth food -- sleep, and total steps from all sources, are automatically recorded -- gym workouts are only one part of a holistic picture)
5. vary your routine, not because you're bored, or aren't getting the results you want, but just because you want variety in your life (my gym workout is always the same, except I added back-strengthening about a year ago, but I also walk around the neighborhood, do stretching and limberness exercises at home, and have a pair of 8-lb. arm weights and a 5-lb. medicine ball at home, all run on their own separate schedules).

I consider myself a successful, and happy, senior exerciser. I've managed to keep it up for at least eight years, and have dropped about 35 lbs. off my weight over that time, most of it the first year, but with a downward curve continuing, though shallower, ever since. I'm actually proud of myself when I look in the mirror these days. My wife concurs. I never had any specific weight loss goals, and never felt a pressing need to look better, except just to generally "improve" my self image. Retirement helped, rather than hindered, the process, too -- more time to play!

All of the above suggestions are focused on your exercise routine feeling good while you're practicing it, and immediately afterwards. My experience has been that focusing on the present is almost always the preferred state of mind. Although I don't meditate, I can understand its appeal! If you allow yourself to focus too much on the future, anxiety is the likely result. If you focus too much on the past, sadness for lost opportunities! The Present remains the best bet for happiness.

Feds can't actually invalidate CA laws, but they can try to politically neutralize them for auto industry ... fortunately, CA has successfully sold its strict environmental laws to most blue states, so that now 30% of new car market is in Blue America!

Even Forbes publishes opinion piece where Republicans are called out on the basic reasoning behind their health care plan!

If you haven't heard, yet, the alt-right has a counter movement: "antifa" (anti-fascist), basically anarchists, maybe prone to violence, certainly anti-democratic, much like their enemies, the alt-right

Mysteries of the Internet: IP Addresses – Where Do They Come From, and Why Should You Care?

William Sundwick

TCP/IP

When the Department of Defense first developed DARPANET, in the late 1960s, it immediately became apparent that all the participating research institutions whose big clunky IBM mainframes, DEC VAXes, and various other odd manufacturers’ products, would need some standard protocols for communicating with one another. Thanks to Robert Kahn and Vinton Cerf (who wrote the original Network Control Program, NCP, used at the outset of ARPANET), a suite of network protocols, consisting of several “layers”, would collectively become known as TCP/IP  -- Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol. The protocol suite was composed of four abstract layers: the “link layer,” the “internet layer,” the “transport layer,” and the “application layer.” Each individual node in one network had to be connected to each of its sibling nodes via the link layer, and different networks had to be connected to each other through the internet layer. The higher-level “transport” and “application” layers were for traditional host-to-host messaging and communication between different processes running on the same computer, respectively.

What makes TCP/IP different from previous network protocols is that it was so loosely defined. The idea, from the very beginning (1973) was to gain the absolute maximum freedom in creating and maintaining links between hosts, both for the present and the future, as technologies would undoubtedly change. Kahn and Cerf embarked on the project, based on Kahn’s previous experience linking satellite networks to terrestrial packet radio networks, for DoD, and Cerf’s background in computer network application design. The Transmission Control Program (TCP) was published in 1974. For the first time, it made reliability of networks dependent upon the hosts in that network. 

In the peer review environment that these researchers worked, endorsements from others were key. They came quickly. John Postel, of USC’s Information Sciences Institute, soon was publishing his “Requests for Comments” (RFCs), which opened the field to many researchers working on similar problems throughout academia. What had been a rarified group of people working for DoD was now taking off throughout the community of folks interested in many problems of computer networking. It seems that the idea of the four layers was the missing principle that was needed; as Postel wrote, “we are screwing up in our design of internet protocols by violating the principle of layering.”

ARPANET to Internet

TCP/IP was a protocol for the ages!  As the number of nodes in ARPANET increased through the seventies, the DoD finally decided to mandate all military computers use TCP/IP in 1982. In 1985, a meeting of all major equipment manufacturers convened as the first “interop” conference, which has been held annually in various locations around the world ever since.  These developments further encouraged commercial adoption of the protocols. International commerce was becoming dependent on free and open access to networks maintained by suppliers, and governments, not to mention the growing global reach of multinational corporations, themselves. Although individual consumers were not yet an important stimulus for growth of the Internet (The World Wide Web was still in the future), the economic powers that be in the world were, by now, very much aware of the value of data exchange in their operations and ultimate profitability. When AT&T decided, in 1989, to release all of its UNIX code, including the TCP/IP stack, into the public domain, standardization made yet another great leap forward.

By this time, it was established that one of the first prerequisites for sending packets of data across networks, and even from one computer to another within a network (both the “internet” and “link” layers), is an address header for the packet, specifying both origin and destination of the packet, just like sending a letter through the mail. And, if every computer in the world was to be accessible, there would have to be an authority to create these unique addresses. Dating from the early ‘70s, there has been a voluntary organization called the “Internet Assigned Numbers Authority” (IANA) to perform that function. It has allocated blocks of numbers for IP addresses among five Regional Internet Registries (RIRs) ever since. The five RIRs cover each of the world’s continents: AFRINIC (African Network Information Center), APNIC (Asia-Pacific Network Information Centre), ARIN (American Registry for Internet Numbers), LACNIC (Latin America and Caribbean Network Information Centre), and RIPENCC (Reseaux IP Europeens Network Coordination Centre).

IANA also has reserved certain blocks of numbers for private networks, or subnets. This allows for individual nodes in a network (e.g., your phone or computer) to have a unique address only WITHIN your “private” network. This usually means that your router is the only device that needs a “public” IP address for reaching the outside world. Chances are very good that, if I were to issue the command “ipconfig” on your Windows computer, or check the Wi-fi settings on your phone, they would reveal IP addresses the same as mine: 192.168.0.1 as the “default gateway” or “server” for Internet connectivity. Only the last “octet” of bits (expressed decimally as 1 – 255, after the final decimal point) would identify the difference between your device and mine. That’s because the network addresses 192.168.*.* are reserved for subnets (used by most home routers). Your network and mine don’t need to touch, except through that public gateway, whose real IP address remains hidden to individual nodes.

Over the last twenty years, IANA has fallen under the general oversight of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). But, it is still IANA that has been allocating blocks of 32-bit IP addresses among those five global RIRs, and has determined which blocks of numbers are reserved for private networks and other special purposes (e.g., the IP address 127.0.0.1 has been assigned the role of "localhost”, or loopback, to one’s own computer … used primarily for network troubleshooting).

Four of the five RIRs have now exhausted all possible IP addresses assigned.  The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), another international group, has agreed upon a 128-bit IP addressing scheme (known as IPv6, as opposed to the old 32-bit standard, IPv4). IPv6 addresses are expressed as hexadecimal numbers; my computer’s IPv6 address is: fe80::7557:2ebd:de38:b940, where it is understood that the empty space between the first and second colon is 0. Like the reserved numbers under IPv4, there are also reserved IPv6 numbers; instead of private networks they are called “unique local addresses” (ULA). The total possible number of IPv4 (32-bit) addresses, now exhausted, is just shy of 4.3 billion (2³²), but IPv6 (128-bit) expands that number to 3.403 x 10³⁸!

Likewise, your smart phone (or tablet) will connect to a cellular network for data, where the cell provider maintains a public IP address on a gateway. You don’t see the private network IP address on your phone, but your provider knows it!. These, too, are private networks from your point of view as an “end user”. However, in order to connect to the wider Internet, your ISP, or cellular provider, must maintain a public IP address. The same architecture applies to the exploding field of “The Internet of Things”, from Smart TVs to kitchen appliances, to home security systems, to my FitBit wrist band.

The growth in demand for Internet connectivity over the last twenty years is what necessitated the creation of ICANN, in 1998. It has an international “Governmental Advisory Committee” with representatives from over 100 UN members, and international organizations. In addition, there are observers from many other international organizations. It is intended to be very open and democratic, as expressed in its charter.  It has three “supporting organizations”: the Generic Names Supporting Organization (concerned with maintaining generic “top level domains”, TLDs, like: .com, .gov, .edu, .org), the Country Code Names Supporting Organization (does the same for country code TLDs, like: .us, .fr, .jp, .eu), and the Address Supporting Organization (this is IANA’s role).

Technical, or Political?

But, here is the difficulty.  ICANN was, until October 1, 2016, affiliated with the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunication and Information Administration (NTIA) … it was originally set up by the U.S. government, as was the Internet, itself (ARPANET). Now, however, the Internet is truly global. Nobody owns it. Hence, ICANN can no longer be affiliated with the U.S. government. But, we still have conflicting interests in the world. Many governmental representatives have voiced criticism about the openness of ICANN’s policy regarding assignment of top-level domains (TLDs), and have questioned whether the corporation has the right to set Internet policies at all. They have disputed the role of a free press in using ICANN’s “whois” tool, where any user can find information about who is the responsible party for a particular IP address.

Some representatives have floated a proposal to move ICANN and IANA into the United Nations bureaucracy, but that proposal has met with opposition in the U.S. Congress.

Also, since IPv6 has not been widely implemented, as of today (my computer has both an IPv4 and IPv6 address, take your pick!), there are still questions of backward compatibility with IPv4 addresses for public networks. Do we believe the technical experts who claim compatibility issues are resolved? We must accept it on faith, it seems.

As more of the world becomes totally dependent on the Internet for all the functions of society -- personal, commercial, government, military -- we should expect to hear louder voices from many quarters. Some will distrust the narrowness of the governing body, others will fear the openness of its operating principles. Some will suspect corruption, or choosing commercial winners and losers. Others may simply object to the $185,000 registration price for a TLD! In any case, we surely will hear more, not less, about worldwide Internet governance. And ICANN’s role doesn’t even touch issues like those facing the U.S. FCC, generally referred to as “net neutrality.” Do American citizens, or citizens of any country, have a right to global Internet connectivity? Or, should they be subject to the marketplace? What about privacy?

 It’s only just starting!

It's Wall Street, stupid!

Queer is real ... and, not pejorative! There is physiological intersexuality, and there are many people who are neither XX nor XY binaries, and even among those who are, many different factors contribute to sexual identity.

Trump's new VOICE office will collect and publish data on crimes local law enforcement have deemed too trivial for detention, "declined detainers" as ICE calls them, when local authorities decline to detain suspects long enough for ICE to get their hands on them.

Science journalism has its weaknesses ... maybe not fake news, but often sensationalized. Beware!

How Did Cars Become Totems for Advanced Industrial Civilization?

Personal experience from mid-century America

William Sundwick

Origins

It started in Germany. When Gottlieb Daimler and Carl Benz, acquaintances from a start-up engineering firm, invented a light-weight internal combustion engine (ICE in today’s parlance), they apparently realized that it was ground breaking, even in the 1880s. They made early marketing attempts in Britain, the U.S., and South Africa … all with some success. There seemed to be widespread nascent demand for autonomous transportation throughout those parts of the world where there was enough infrastructure (roads and streets) to support a flourishing bicycle and carriage trade. It was autonomous, in those days, not because it didn’t require a human driver, but because it didn’t need a horse!

In the United States, and Europe as well, the ICE was a big hit early, with a small army of machine shop innovators, all with the same abiding faith that autonomous transportation would be the game-changer in the next century. They were right, of course. The environment that encouraged their innovative spirits was far less complex than the one that we know from Silicon Valley in the late 20^th century. But, like that latter day technological revolution, it needed tools, and preceding breakthroughs, to facilitate it. Instead of semiconductors and integrated circuits, the early engineers relied on lubricants and bearings. Instead of a telecommunications grid, they relied on dense populations geographically connected by thoroughfares. Developments in both periods required inventors who were not only creative, but had mastered a concrete body of engineering knowledge. They weren’t yokels!

Another shared characteristic of both these revolutions, the early 20^th century autonomous transportation revolution and the late 20^th century digital revolution, was the existence of a widespread climate of economic opportunity. The industrial revolution, by the beginning of the last century, had advanced far enough, in Europe and North America, to cause governments in all the leading industrialized states to start taking actions to increase opportunities for entrepreneurship, by freeing capital for younger, less entitled, participants in those emerging industrial economies. In the late 20^th century, we saw similar enabling political momentum through the release of venture capital.

In both cases, consumer demand was hard to contain once unleashed. That consumer demand was always about empowerment … the power of enhanced freedom of movement, or the power of being able to find out so much more about one’s world, rapidly and without the need to travel (if you chose to take advantage of it). Today’s FOMO behavior disorder (“Fear Of Missing Out”) is the result of too much information being presented all at once, so much that many cannot digest it rationally, instead panicking, in a fit of nervous thumbing of their smart phone keypads. The earlier autonomy granted by personal transportation resulted in serious changes in housing patterns, suburbs, increasing traffic congestion, pollution, highway deaths, etc.  Power is very addicting! Not necessarily for the common good … 

Car Culture

We hear a lot about “car culture” as a sociological phenomenon of the mid- 20^th century, mostly. This was the period when innovation in the technology was slowing, as the auto industry was becoming more mature. But, the impact of the automobile on the consumer, the future car buyer as well as the existing car owner who felt the need to “upgrade,” began to take the appearance of a bizarre psychosocial game. At this point, cars became the “totems” of an advanced, some would say decadent, industrial civilization. Anthropologists define a totem as a sacred object which represents something dear to the culture, hence venerated by the entire tribe. Much the same way that continuously “advancing” personal information technology has become the totem of decadent post-industrial society in the 21^st century. The fix for the resulting addiction is to continually chase after the next new thing, the next upgrade. The motivator is social status, or self-image, or some other psychological boost, but never practicality nor prudence. It is the eternal quest of the aspirant. In mid-century America, at least, we were, all of us aspirants, indoctrinated into that quest for upward mobility as the basic “American Way.” If you could afford it, you had to show it … and compete with your neighbors for the newest, flashiest extension to your ego.

My personal journey through the “car culture” of the second half of the twentieth century saw me as a young lad, in elementary school, wanting to grow up to be a “car designer.” I made endless drawings of hypothetical cars, based on what I read, even then, in the automotive press, like the Peterson Publications or Road & Track. As the only child of a GM engineer, who, like most of the engineering staff in his plant, needed to maintain corporate and professional standing by trading cars every year, we always had new cars in our driveway to provide grist for my imagination. We bought a new Cadillac each year during the mid-50s, enabled by generous corporate discounts; my father claimed he never lost “much” when he traded each year.

In high school, Dad directed me to read Alfred P. Sloan’s “My Years with General Motors”, a classic tome in B-school circles, I gather, although I never pursued that path myself. Sloan impressed upon my young mind the incredible achievement of General Motors, having invented not the automobile, itself, but the method for marketing them to the world! It’s not a stretch to say that “car culture” WAS invented by General Motors in the 1920s!

In Sloan’s view, it was all about the concept now known as market segmentation. What GM did was to convince the world that they needed a new car … one designed just for them, to make them whole, and they needed this new car to be changed out frequently! It was a new car that was a veritable expression of their soul. And, their soul was different if they chose a Buick, or a Pontiac, or a Chevrolet. And, as they changed themselves, confronting new challenges, new roles in life, they naturally needed a new car! The evil genius of it all … an idealized representation of the striving of all “good Americans”. Clearly, anthropologists would call the automobile a “totem” for that industrial culture.

What Sloan didn’t anticipate, and would not become apparent until the late 20^th century decline of GM, were the limits to the growth of aspirations … at least within the realm of personal transportation. People just got bored with their cars, and everybody else’s cars, too. Cars became appliances, practicality ultimately trumped sex appeal and ego. Car culture died.

Flint, Michigan

I read Sloan’s words at a time when I was desperately trying to have a bigger impact on my world. I wanted to impress, not just the cute girl in my chemistry lab, but my peer group in Flint, Michigan. My tribe. Theirs was, to be sure, a culture of “gearheads,” in the early ‘60s. Quite a different group were those that I considered my real peers, far too nerdy to get any attention from girls in those days. I didn’t appreciate it at the time, but we all would eventually do just fine, once leaving the culture of Flint. At the time, we saw no hope for Flint, even in those prosperous days of the sixties. However, the culture continued to haunt me long after leaving the area, to join the “bicoastal cosmopolitan elite” in the DC metro region. Even now as I write, I think of relatives left behind. I may even occasionally shed a tear for those who never had the opportunity to get out, to grow like I did. Is it survivor’s guilt? Or, what about the distinct possibility that many (including my relatives) voluntarily chose to stay in Flint! Perhaps there was more to the community than cars and upward mobility. I believe they would say so. Thinking of all this, it seems the least I can do is pay homage to those totems of that bygone culture, as though I were still a believer in the religion …

My experience leaves me, then, with real pangs of nostalgia. I think of those left behind. I think of the better times my hometown knew when there were simply more gearheads around. I think of my first car, a 1956 Pontiac with its paint job from factory hijacked 1963 Buick Riviera sliver fleck custom color (unusual to see silver cars back then). I think of its racing carrier rear axle (4.11:1, not designed for fuel economy!). I think of jack rabbit starts from traffic lights, to “beat out” the high school friend in the next lane, driving his mother’s station wagon!  Power. I think of going to dragstrips in Florida after college, just to watch … and hear the sounds, and smell the smoke. I never had the courage to compete in junior stock classes, with my 1969 Opel Rallye Kadett, but could vicariously experience it in the gallery. The earlier childhood dream of becoming a “car designer” had given way to a more impersonal fantasy of simply imagining, and making lists, often with detailed description, many different real cars, current and historic, equipped and modified in real (or, realistic) ways -- knowledge of which I gained mostly by reading, and from oral histories related to me by high school friends and college buddies, and older relatives back in Flint.

It was a rich world of my imagination, with the cars becoming literal characters in some primitive drama. I was totally enthralled by the film “American Graffiti.” It seemed to represent that fantasy world of cars, almost perfectly. I probably identified most with Ron Howard’s character, Steve, exactly as George Lukas would have intended. 

After “American Graffiti”

I was lonely in those days! Since I had not yet grasped the meaning of human intimacy, it seemed that cars were the closest approximation. But, they weren’t exactly sexy to me, they were just there, with individual characters and personalities … like people. Like people in my life.  I continued my childhood practice of touring all kinds of auto dealerships, at new model introduction time, collecting brochures, trying to convince salesmen that I was truly in the market, but not seriously (“early looking”, but this posture was not possible for luxury make dealers, since I was much too young to be convincing for that market). I went to auto shows, where I could touch and sit in even those luxury and exotic makes. I went to museums, and classic car shows, where I could commune with those historical origins of car culture.

Then, after finally deciding to “get a life”, I managed to briefly recreate my enthusiasm by channeling my oldest son -- when he, too, seemed to pass through a “car nut” phase in adolescence. Perhaps the enthusiasm was mutually supported. He picked it up from me, I renewed it through him. To this day, he proudly promotes Subaru, and its branding, to friends and in-laws. He and his wife have now owned three “Subies”, and he claims to have convinced his sister-in-law to get one, too.

Stay Tuned

The Internet was here in a big way, now. It would not be possible to avoid diving into the world of cars once again, images and blogs from many different sources, instantly available …. different kinds of cars: classic cars, antiques, customs, hot rods, exotics, even advertising copy for ordinary cars (automobile marketing remains a discrete field unto itself, I maintain).

The logo for this “Totems” page of my blog is an example of advertising copy for the 1942 Willys Americar (downloaded from TOCMP). Willys is a make that most people alive today remain totally unaware of. They built passenger cars for the mass market from the 1920s (as Willys-Knight or Overland) into the 1950s. Always located in Toledo, that wonderful rust belt city is still home to the successor brand, Jeep. But, the Willys brand always struggled, never built any market share, except through the “Jeep” nameplate, which outlived the parent company by several decades!  Just a taste here of posts to come.

My library of automotive images will likely be the subject of future posts. An individual photo, or small collection, would be the starting point for an essay on some obscure corner of the world of cars. Or, the hot topics for the 21^st century; e.g., we now have a different definition of autonomous transportation. How about alternative fuels? Can’t wait? Stay tuned …