THE FEED
Small TalkLOS ANGELES 06 March 2010 |
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I can’t really think of what to say. It’s raining in Los Angeles. When I can’t think of what to say, I’ll generally mention the weather. This happens on elevators, and on the telephone, and at “business meetings” and whatnot. People talking about the weather when they don’t know what else to talk about.
I realized earlier today that I don’t know what the word macrobiotic means. I saw it on the cover of a magazine. The magazine was sitting on the kitchen counter. I thought to myself: I don’t understand.
I still don’t.
Let me go to Wikipedia and look it up:
A macrobiotic diet (or macrobiotics), from the Greek “macro” (large, long) and “bios” (life), is a dietary regimen that involves eating grains as a staple food supplemented with other foodstuffs such as vegetables and beans, and avoiding the use of highly processed or refined foods. Macrobiotics also addresses the manner of eating by recommending against overeating and requiring that food be chewed thoroughly before swallowing.
The earliest mention of “macrobiotic” comes from Hippocrates, the founder of Western medicine, in an essay entitled “Airs, Waters, and Places.”
Airs.
He used the word “macrobiotic” to describe healthy people with long lifespans.
I don’t know what the word vitamin means, either. I don’t know what a vitamin is. And yet I’m pretty concerned about making sure that I have enough of them. In my body.
“It’s really high in vitamins.”
“It’s vitamin-packed.”
“Don’t forget to take your vitamins.”
I think a vitamin is, like, a chemical or something. (And what is a chemical? A combination of molecules?)
I really have no idea.
I’m just pulling that out of my ass.
Truth? When I think of the word “macrobiotic,” I think of celebrities like Madonna and Gwyneth Paltrow. That’s the association. It’s absurd.
Until today, I’d never really examined the word, but if someone had mentioned it to me in conversation, I somehow would’ve had a general understanding, and I would’ve thought of Madonna and Gwyneth. Or, if someone asked me for a definition, I likely could have come up with something somewhat similar to what’s written up above.
Somewhere along the line I must have learned about macrobiotic eating, and I just don’t remember it. I must have seen something on Entertainment Tonight or something. Maybe I read it on Perez Hilton.
I was aware that on a macrobiotic diet you couldn’t eat processed foods. And I’m pretty sure this means you shouldn’t be eating cooked foods, either. But maybe I’m wrong. Anyway, it’s a pretty restrictive regimen.
And really, my point was the weather. People talking about the weather. It seems like the weather is probably the #1 topic of conversation when it comes to small talk. When in doubt, talk about the weather. It’s something everybody can relate to, I guess. We’re all subjected to it.
And the weird thing is that I really don’t know all that much about the weather. Meteorology in general. A term like the jet stream, for example, is sort of nebulous to me. This high-altitude wind current. I guess that’s what it is. But where does it come from? Where does it go? What makes wind? I’d have to really stop and think about that. I’d have to do some reading.
We know that it’s sunny. We know that it’s cold. We know there is ice on our windshield and slush in our driveway. We know that it’s raining.
Maybe that’s enough.
“Can you believe this weather?”
It just strikes me as sort of odd, the fact that we, as people, generally speaking, in the 21st century, don’t have a deeper scientific understanding of weather. That the level of discourse isn’t higher, considering the fact that we talk about it so much.
You’d think at this point we’d be discussing the nitty gritty details. Passionate small talk about ocean currents and barometric pressure and dew points and gradients and forecast models.
Maybe farmers do this.
Farmers probably do this.
Farmer small talk.
It would be sort of interesting to do a scientific study about topics of conversation. A small talk study. What people talk about with other people. And particularly what people talk about when they are “talking small.”
I wonder if it’s changed over the years.
And assuming that it hasn’t, then I gotta believe that weather really is the #1 topic of small talk conversation. And always has been.
It probably goes back to the cavemen. Talking about the goddamn weather.
Drawing pictures of thunderstorms on the granite wall.
Not knowing what else to talk about.
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I talked about the weather with 2 sales people today as I was running errands. While they rang me up and there was an awkward silence, one of us felt compelled to mention the sunshine. And, well, here in Chicago, we haven’t seen any sun in so long that for once, perhaps talking about the weather isn’t for lack of conversation, but because people are fascinated by the bright yellow disc in the sky we haven’t seen in months.
…
It rains in Los Angeles?
So what about those Dodgers?
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Wind: Coriolis force (created by earth spinning on axis and dragging atmosphere with it) + some pretty basic physics stuff; like, warm air rises, and cool air sinks, causing vacancies–pockets of low pressure–into which something has to go. Namely, other air. The movement of that air into and out of low/high pressure areas is wind.
I mean, it’s a general explanation, but nevertheless correct, to the best of my knowledge. Learned it when I learned about ocean currents (which work much in the same way) in an earth sciences/geology class.
Does that ruin the small talk? Like, when you’re standing making small talk and ask a rhetorical question like that and one person standing around listening to the small talk goes, “Well, ACTUALLY, if you really want to know….”
That’s the thing. It’s small talk, although a better description would be shallow talk. If do happen to know about the weather and you say something about upper-level low pressure systems or the boundary layer or a rear-flank downdraft, people look at you oddly and say, “What are you? A weatherman?” The whole point of weather as small talk is the lack of investment and the general imprecision of it.
For a weather nut, one of the best lines in cinema history comes from Groundhog Day. Phil Connors to Mrs. Lancaster, proprietor of the bed and breakfast:
“Did you want to talk about the weather? Or were you just making chitchat?”
I’m the queen of the annoying “Well, actually…” in my friends group.
So now whenever they can’t think of some random thing, they’ll be like, “Hey! Becky will know!” And look at me.
But because it’s normally just a nuisance when I know strange things, they never pay attention to the kinds of things I tend to know, and when they’re actually asking for some random bit of information, it tends to be on some topic I’m totally clueless about.
“How the fuck should I know?” I say.
“I don’t know. You’re always telling us random shit.”
“Not about that.”
“Well, dammit, Becky.”
Then I am a disappointment. Sometimes you just can’t win.
In my Counseling Theories class, there was one theory that discussed the mental health of being able to chit-chat and have pleasantries with the people you must deal with during the day, as you go about your day. I thought it was interesting. People tend to see this as being shallow, this resorting to “Hi, how are you?” and answering, “I’m fine” or great or ca va. But it is considered to be disorder in this one theory if one can’t small talk.
Ever since that class, I’ve tried to small talk more. Just so I know I don’t have whatever that disorder was.
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