gloomyjoe

central pink

2008-04-28T11:24:00.002-04:00

Even after all these years people still ask me from time to time (like at a party I went to this weekend) whether I don't miss the land of my birth and upbringing. To be honest the answer varies. In late January, I will admit, I get a pang now and then. But this time of year? With cherry blossoms at their peak around the reservoir in Central Park, and everything else pretty much bursting out

my favorite typo

2008-02-05T15:36:00.000-05:00

I don't typically make great claims for myself in matters involving physical coordination or dexterity, but I type really really fast (for someone who's not a trained typist). Like a good 60-70 wpm when I'm on a roll. And for ages I have habitually closed e-mail messages with "Best regards," -- I'm not sure why, I guess maybe because it's sufficiently vague that one might actually mean it, as

my first bread

2008-01-21T09:55:00.000-05:00

A longstanding new year's resolution of mine involves becoming a more proficient baker. I cook pretty well, I think, but baking scares me. Something about the exactness of the proportions and the need for temperature control (an oven upgrade--hell, a kitchen upgrade--is another longstanding resolution). And kneading seems like a lot of work. In parallel with that, I am a huge fan of Cook's

overheard at einstein on the beach

2007-12-06T23:59:00.000-05:00

I wasn't going to see "Einstein on the Beach" (performed by Glass himself in a slightly abridged version at Carnegie Hall Thursday night). But impulsively I got out of work and decided to go see if there were any tickets left. Short answer: no. But someone outside the hall was selling a single ticket in the balcony. So, it was fate. It's tough to find words to describe the experience.

anthropodermic bibliopegy

2007-04-11T12:31:00.000-04:00

For those of you not in the know: Anthropo=human Dermic=skin Biblio=book Pegy=binding/fastening Thank goodness for Harvard Law students with too much time on their hands. This is fascinating. Something to add to my birthday wish list! My favorite anecdote is maybe In My Life with Paper, master book designer Dard Hunter tells of being hired by a young widow to bind a volume of letters

300 thoughts

2007-04-01T15:28:00.000-04:00

Not a haiku. But somewhat poetically: They said "Gladiator" was awful, and I said, "I don't know, I kind of liked it. It could be far worse anyway..." And then came "Troy." And they said "Wow. THAT was awful, and oh, 'Gladiator' doesn't seem so bad now. And I said, "I don't know, I kind of liked it. It could be worse, anyway..." And now comes "300." And they say "Holy crap, it makes '

my week of culture

2007-04-01T01:20:00.000-04:00

I take some pride in thinking of myself as a rather cultured guy. But for whatever reason this week was an unusually broad swath of highs and (and a low). Tuesday: Edward Scissorhands, the ballet, at the Brooklyn Academy of MusicWednesday: Reception for the centennial exhibit at the Japan Society, Chinese and Japanese Zen portraitureThursday: Pirates of Penzance at CityOperaFriday: *Ahem* "300,"

typical evening

2007-03-06T00:14:00.000-05:00

This evening I went to hear Professor Freeman Dyson give a talk on quixotic Cold War rocketry at the Guggenheim. Pretty much entirely so that I could write that sentence. I wonder if anyone pointed out to Professor Dyson that the lovely cloud chamber image that adorns his most recent book was also, of course, famously used as the art on the Strokes's first album. Maybe that's exactly why he

don't dorp by

2007-02-19T11:27:00.000-05:00

My company recently moved into space in the historic Woolworth Building downtown, one of the great iconic skyscrapers in, well, the world really, and an appropriately gothic setting for yours truly. But that's another story. Every evening for the past two weeks, as I've walked out to go home, I have seen queues of people waiting for express buses that roll down Broadway, heading for two

nature, red in...claw at least

2007-02-15T23:02:00.000-05:00

So, I have a friend, who spends a lot of time in New York but who bought a house in the hamlet of Andover, Vermont. Why? Well he sort of claims he likes to get back to nature. I bring this up because it's useful to remember that even in the middle of Manhattan, you're not really all that far away from it. Case in point would be, you're sitting enjoying your cheerios one morning and you hear a

at least i'll forget my troubles

2007-02-05T22:37:00.000-05:00

What do you get if you cross my greatest fear with the deepest truth of my existence? No, not another lengthy disruption to posting blog entries. But good guess. Actually you get this BBC story, the punchline to which is People who are lonely are twice as likely to develop Alzheimer's disease, a large US study has suggested.Great. Just great. It also does my heart, to say nothing of my brain

hiatus/kiwi

2006-11-21T17:10:00.000-05:00

Wish I could say that my lack of recent posts was caused by a rare burst of radiant joy or utter bliss, obviating any desire for gloom. Quite the opposite, in reality. But we get through these things and soldier on. Or we don't. Anyway, someone just pointed me toward Kiwi!, a grad school animation project. Viewing it is 3.5 minutes very well spent. Thank heaven for YouTube, or else we

would you be offended…

2006-09-24T23:20:00.000-04:00

I was in Boston on Friday, and took a little time off work and sat on the Esplanade, watching sailboats on the Charles River and reminiscing about when I was young. And out of the corner of my eye I notice a couple of young guys talking to the guy on the next bench. But I’m mostly just watching the sailboats and enjoying the lovely weather and thinking about how much my life sucks. The next

to eris human

2006-09-14T16:55:00.000-04:00

Okay, I confess that mainly I'm posting this because I thought the title insanely clever, and I haven't seen it anywhere else yet. But at the same time, it seems gloomily appropriate to me that the minor planet tentatively named Xena has been officially named Eris, after the Greek goddess of discord, and its moon is called Dysnomia (goddess of lawlessness). Because really, who doesn't like

singularity: hurry up already

2006-08-29T14:13:00.000-04:00

For those of you not in the know, ‘Singularity’ is the concept that sometime in the next 20 or so years, extrapolating from current trends, computing capabilities will so greatly exceed the human brain’s capacities that it becomes impossible to predict what happens afterward. [The link is to a very good piece by Vernor Vinge on the subject.] While the term doesn’t have much common currency, the

defectives, dependents, and delinquents

2006-08-27T12:12:00.000-04:00

I was looking at the 1930 census [pdf] the other day. No, don’t ask why, it’s not important. But as I was looking at the table of contents, Section 2, titled “Defectives, Dependents, Delinquents,” caught my eye, as well it might. The sheer, brutal, honesty of the title kind of takes your breath away. Hard to imagine how different a culture it must have been to

is the new

2006-08-16T23:08:00.000-04:00

I always apologize when I use this forum simply to link to cool stuff I've found online. So, I'm sorry. But you have to go check out this graphic from the folks at DIAGRAM, which I discovered thanks to Gothamist. They did a Nexis search or something on all the phrases on the pattern "X is the new Y," and built a sort of diagrammatic depiction of the results. The color bit is the best part, but

amorpho-what??

2006-08-15T22:32:00.000-04:00

Friday was lovely in New York. A perfect day for blowing off work. Which I would never do normally, except that as it turns out it was also the day that the Brooklyn Botanical Garden's titan arum decided to bloom. For those of you not in the know, the titan arum comes from the jungles of Sumatra. It is one of the largest, stinkiest flowers in the world, with a smell that's supposed to be almost

thwarting the bacchae

2006-08-13T22:34:00.000-04:00

This weekend saw some of the most amazingly beautiful weather I remember in all my time living in New York. So tonight was (I thought) a perfect night to go and see a free performance of Euripides's The Bacchae near the suitably classical Soldiers and Sailors Monument in suitably bucolic Riverside Park. Alas, 'twas not to be, for reasons I gleaned from a couple of overheard conversations.

the art i almost bought

2006-08-06T23:53:00.000-04:00

Last Monday I took a long lunch and went to a gallery show in the West Village featuring prints of one of my favorite contemporary artists, Vija Celmins. Among the pieces they had were two from her series of spider webs, though not the one pictured here (it was just the easiest image to find online for illustrative purposes). In their quiet, gloomy austerity, is it any wonder that I love these

...if it's worth savin' me

2006-07-18T19:28:00.000-04:00

Hmm, two posts in one week (hmm, TWO posts in one week!) about Canadian bands. What's up with that? But unlike the previous post I'm not necessarily saying anything nice about Nickelback per se. But I stumbled on one of their videos fairly recently--for a song called "Savin' Me"--and while I don't see many videos (who sees many videos these days?), this one is great. [Hopefully the link works,

life: spam on wry

2006-07-16T02:45:00.000-04:00

I received an intriguing spam message in my work e-mail a month or two ago, so much so that it has hung out there all this time as I've periodically contemplated it. Never even looked at the content of the message, but someone named "dejuan monica" sent me a message with the subject line:life, n.: a whim of several billion cells to be you for a while.I'd never seen that quote before, though if

better disasters

2006-07-14T12:04:00.000-04:00

I'm finishing Simon Winchester's A Crack in the Edge of the World, about the 1906 SF earthquake (happy 100th anniversary, btw). He's a fine, amusing writer but I strongly disagree with his main conclusion. He kind of thinks there shouldn't be a San Francisco; I think that if you only put cities where there's no chance of any kind of disaster ever striking them, you end up, particularly in this

the birthday massacre

2006-07-12T15:35:00.000-04:00

Some future fine mid-May day this may well be headline of news reports in conjunction with yours truly. But not this year. I came close though. Actually, last week at some point the iTunes music store recommended this obscure pop-gothy Canadian band as something I might enjoy. And, in one of those small happinesses that mean so much in my life, I definitely do. Violet turns out to be an

brain age 3

2006-07-06T22:54:00.000-04:00

I was going to brag that my brain age was nicely down to 23 as of the fourth of July. But I took the test this evening and I can't brag about that. Because I'm pleased to say that according to the disembodied head of Dr. Kawashima, my brain is a perfect 20 years old. And no, it's not just because I constantly obsess about all the sex I'm not having. See this post for more. And check out my