Last night Nora and I went to Williamsburg to check out the Galapagos Art Space. Unfortunately, we recently went to the DMV for NY licenses and still have temporary IDs, which I forgot all-together. Just as well, we got to meet the "Talk to Me" couple Liz Barry and Bill Wetzel! They're camping out in the Polish neighborhood of Greenpoint this week and talking to the denizens of Bedford from the comfort of their lawn chairs.
I'm happy to report that the Prison Rape Elimination Act I advocated in July is now law.
Why (#32) are the red/green lights in traffic signals LED, but the yellow is still incandescent?
We enjoyed gazing at the giant inflated orbs of Takashi Murakami suspended beneath the tower of Rockefeller Center; finding the latest Cometbus and the Burn Collector book at See Hear; tidying and canoeing on the Gowanus Canal; and picnicking in Prospect Park.
We skipped the Dali Lama, and still look forward to eating at Gingko Leaf.
Nora's made a couple road trip tapes that we never listened to because the car had a CD player instead. This morning, the tapes are getting their well deserved air time.
Also — finally and as just seen on TV — Toto's heated, hydrating, and aerating toilet seat has arrived from Japan! The "washlet" commercial is rather amusing. A man covered in smeared grime stands in the shower trying to wipe the filth off with toilet paper, "You wouldn't clean your body this way after a hard day of work, why then your privates!?"
"A true measure of your worth includes all the benefits others have gained from your successes." - Cullen Hightower
I'm starting my third week in my new life at college. But I'm not sure where I stand. I'm risk averse; I don't do well with uncertainty. I tell myself to take chances because they've been good for me, and I get bored with the same old, same old. But the unknown future can bring new anxiety, a thousandfold.
Personally, "shacking up" has gone very well! I couldn't ask for more.
Egotistically, I remind myself of its dangers but I sometimes lapse. I used to fly around the world, meet with powerful consultants, lobbyists, and technologists; I powwowed in the directorates and commissions of Brussels and DC. I jetset on others' dimes, and collected a few honoraria to boot! I had a few publications, I lectured and gave talks at conferences — and often received a top rating. In the past couple of years I was featured in publications as a "Digital Master" or "Young Innovator."
But now I'm a student, and while I'm not averse to the term, other people do take notice of such labels. And substantively, I am a student in the sense that I'm freshly ignorant. Where I was once an expert sampling other disciplines, I'm now to be judged as an aspiring pretender in those other domains. And there my previous expertise and enthusiasms might be foreign, or even hostilely received. Also, I'm meeting students who have preceded me. Some are cynical and want to forget the past few years, or trudge on in a tired desperateness to traverse the next. This does not sound like a joyful life and it causes my heart to race.
Unfortunately, neither my humbleness nor egoism are true. If I was humble, such things would not matter. If I was egotistical, I'd have a sense of confidence. Instead, any bluster on my part would merely raise expectations, which my insecurities can't tolerate. I know that where I worked before, while I might've been a bright light, I was amongst brilliant stars within a beautifully crafted orb.
Socially, while I'm not gregarious nor great at meeting people, the weight of time had afforded me a profound acquaintanceship in Cambridge. I had many good friends who once had been great, and while we may have since diverged, we could resume an instant rapport. I had new friendships that I was leisurely developing, and most importantly an intimate knowledge of my environment. After a decade I knew the history, stories, and many of the faces that passed me every day. Being able to stop in a coffee shop, or walk down the hall and chat with a colleague is very comforting.
Of course, great opportunities abound here, I remind myself to have faith. And I've appended "Taming Your Gremlin" to my already intimidating reading list.
Buddha Bodai is reputed to be a great vegetarian restaurant in Queen's Chinatown. It took us about 80 minutes to get there from Brooklyn but the food was disappointing. The wonton soup was boring, missing that yummy fried onion flavor and the ability to taste the distinct ingredients of the dumplings, and the egg rolls had that disgusting cinnamon taste common to vegie Asian food in New York. We didn't even stay for a main course. Grasshopper, we miss you.
The Flushing Queens library is quite nice, and its readership is one of the most diverse of any I've seen. The etched glass window in the children's reading room is lovely.
Earlier in the week, twin towers of light stood above the Brooklyn skyline commemorating the World Trade Center. At a nearby school, hopes for a more peaceful world fluttered in the wind.
Ironically, it was on the Japanese blog of Joi Ito that I learned of a NYC meet-up. Like the Harvard or Boston groups, it isn't too hard to get one's self involved in a conversation or two. I suppose the bloggers that go to such things are obviously amenable to social interaction, and most importantly, we already have things in common to discuss. Joi showed me his picture phone; I met Liza, Sam, Joe, Melissa, and Andrew; and I (literally) bumped into Mena though I didn't get a chance to say more than "excuse me."
Last night Nora and I attended an art event, Touch and Go; it was in the neighborhood and my friend Trouble was spinning. When I go to an "interactive art" event I'm as likely to be looking at the gadgets and wondering what makes the pieces run, as admiring the aesthetics or artist's intent.
Earlier in the day I had watched TechTV's review of the latest "inexpensive" video projectors, and The Two Towers on Storm Sweeper's plasma TV. So my mind was on the question of if I were to buy a new TV (which I'm not), should I get a projector or plasma?
As I stood with Nora watching pretty pictures issuing forth from a video projector attached to a Powerbook, I rambled on about the the color fidelity, geometry, and the "screen door effect." Then, a woman sheepishly moved up from behind us and touched the mouse pad and mumbled something about "watching the screensaver." Dang, that always happens to me. Artists should turn off their screen savers, and the lofts shouldn't leave cool things like fans, pipes, paint splashes,and tools around that I might get interested in and embarrass myself with.
As I mentioned in June, I've been working on a new blog, OpenCodex, for my research. The benefit is that I'm now using a semi-standardized tool (pyblosxom) that supports comments, trackbacks, and categories. In fact, one can even subscribe to RSS feeds of the individual categories — if for example you only want to subscribe to my tinkerings with python. Consequently, if you enjoyed my musings about community, blogs, technology, or getting a PhD, do check out OpenCodex. If you like the photographs, travel diaries, bits of local history, personal musings and news, politics, and ethics, stay tuned to Goatee. And of course, if you like both, dig in!
However, I do this split with some trepidation. Ironically, it comes at a time when I'm not as concerned about maintaining Goatee as a completely discrete personal space from the point of view of privacy. In the past, I was extremely rigorous about keeping my personal and professional spheres discrete. However, blogs are now the norm, and not the exception; consequently, it's not so weird to find a site with an essay on some XML application and photos of their kids. And even though you will be hard pressed to find an instance of my name on this site — and I used to ask people not to link to this site, particularly if the link contained my name — if you search Google for my name presently, Goatee is the second return! It still figured it out.
So, this split is a way for me to learn a new tool and to cater to different audiences. While the tension between the personal and professional was often constructive — one can't completely sever one's roles — I often would feel guilty writing something technical that I knew my friends would find boring, or something personal my colleagues wouldn't care about.
Granted, if someone wants to find my personal site, it's now trivial, but if someone were to read something he didn't like, he proceeded at his own jeopardy.
Liberty shines in the night; no diving, no swimming.
Nora and I have found our part of Brooklyn to be fairly bike accessible: our streets aren't too crowded and there's even a few designated bike paths. The ride up Park Slope (to Prospect Park, the library, and Brooklyn Museum of Art) is steep, but good for us. And cruising down it on the return trip is fun.
The one thing I miss is a cafe were one can sit for an hour or so and talk to a friend or read a newspaper. Last week we ate at Goga cafe which has good vegetarian food and eclectic evening events; it could be a candidate for lingering, but I'm not yet sure. For our vegan friendly groceries we've been relying upon Park Natural & Organic Food. My brother Greg has a colleague (from a vegan bakery down in DC) that recommends Park Slope Food Coop. It's not too far, up the slope by the park, but they require all members to work, otherwise you can't even shop there.
I think Nora misses Trader Joe's for its inexpensive Tom's of Maine products. When I look in our cupboard, I figure we have about a year's worth of supplies! That should last until we can get back to Boston and restock, or find a local source.
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