The real question I have: is Sven Sundgaard a cool guy, or is he an uber-dork? Seeing him on TV and reading his blog does not allow me any insight into this question. We all missed Sven last weekend, who is at some sort of conference and was replaced by the always entertainingly dressed Pat Evans. A while back he had a crazy striped shirt with no suit or tie; this weekend he had a shirt and tie decked out in purple (Viking supporter, or fan or Prince? [as a fan of parentheticals, I'm going to take this to the utmost extreme (I've always wondered if Prince, from Minnesota and obsessed with the color purple, is a Viking fan)]).
Anyway, here is one tip on how not to spend money.
Don't get a speeding ticket.
If you get a ticket for speeding 1-10 miles per hour on White Bear Avenue, you will have to pay $118. However, if you have a clean driving record, there's evidently a number you can call to try keep this ticket off your record. Let us never discuss why I know this.
However, IF you do get a speeding ticket, do not make it about a sacrifice of money: make it about a sacrifice of pleasures. For example, if you are typically really hungry after an evening class two nights a week and stop for fast food, don't. Go hungry until you get home. This could save you $5-6 a week, which goes a long way toward making up that $118. As the architect in The Matrix says, "There are levels of survival we are prepared to accept." In order to make up for a speeding ticket, just go hungry. Or, let's say you have a relatively cheap, enjoyable, but unnecessary hobby, such as collecting football cards. Instead of giving up $118 from what you have, consider the punishment a moratorium on buying football cards.
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I don't think there's any easy answer to your dichotomous "cool guy" v. "uber-dork" question. Context is required before one can even attempt an answer.
ReplyDeleteWho defines "cool"? Who defines "dork"? By the standards of the broad stratum of American mainstream society, with its tendency toward conformity and apathy, Sven's "eccentricities" -- his obsession with weather and the genuine frisson of excitement it provides him, his ambigious affectational orientation, his fixation on his ancestors' homeland when other Americans as removed as he is from it care little or nothing about their European ancestry -- could be seen as signifiers of a kind of dorkdom or, at the very least, an unwillingness to conform to mainstream societal expectations and assumptions.
However, these same qualities could be seen as "cool" signifiers (and, ironically, rebellion against conformity is generally valued as "cool" by those in the societal majority as well, only the form most revered is that of the model exemplified by James Dean -- motorcycle accidents, pouting -- rather than that embodied by Sven Sundgaard -- love of weather, over-attachment to Norway), depending on the one doing the judging.
If the study of quantum physics has taught us anything, it's that reality is subjective. As a result, to judge or define a single person as "cool" or "an uber-dork" requires the holder of the opinion to offer up the selective criteria by which they are choosing to judge and to illuminate, at least to some extent, the background experiences through which they have formed their opinions and world view.
We will never discuss how you know this about White Bear Ave tickets.
ReplyDeleteAlso: He's short, but in a good way.
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