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It's a lonely life, Tift Merritt. But I totally agree about the modern aspects of it.

And in another effort to halt the relentless march of "progress," an excerpt in support of handwritten notes.

Are you an advocate looking for a cause? Try education for girls.

The geography of government benefits.

The island where people forget to die.

Happy birthday, Bob Ross.

Laws of Modern Man.
Laws of Modern Woman.

Brooklyn, U.S.A. -- Hurricanes, Yoga, and Art, Not Necessarily In That Order

Speaking of the next day, the morning was fraught with consternation as E and I pondered from our separate locations whether to change our airplane tickets, since New York was about to get hurricane'd on.  And I might have done a little actual work as well.

I was sore from running so skipped that and instead went to the New York version of the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian.  (There's a bigger on in DC.)  It was, well, small, but enjoyable.  And it's housed in the Alexander Hamilton U.S. Customs House, which is simply stunning (more).

 The ceiling of the central hall

The permanent exhibition of Native American clothing and artifacts was there, and very cool.  They had a small exhibit of mixed media paintings by Julie Buffalohead which I didn't care for too much, but there was a great exhibit called "Up Where We Belong" highlighting Native Americans and their contributions to the music world, primarily rock and jazz.  Unfortunately the "Circle of Dance" exhibition wasn't open yet.

 A martingale, used to prevent a horse's head from rising too high.

 The platinum record reissued to the family of Ritchie Valens for "Donna."  The exhibit also has Buffy Sainte-Marie's Oscar for "Up Where We Belong" (from An Officer and a Gentleman) and the 2008 Lifetime Achievement Grammy awarded to The Band.

Lyrics sheet for "Universal Soldier"

 Jimi Hendrix's multi-colored coat

 Robbie Robertson's custom-painted Fender Stratocaster

 Stevie Salas had his guitar custom-shaped to resemble the club wielded by Chingachgook in The Last of the Mohicans

From there I went to an exhibit I had heard about in Soho but just hadn't made it to yet.  It's called The New York Earth Room, and it is exactly what it sounds like - a room full of earth.  Dirt.  That's right.  Someone filled a second-floor loft in Soho with thigh-deep dirt.  And you know what?  It's actually really cool!  Weird, for sure, but cool (literally cool, in the summer, apparently - the dirt helps modulate the temperature swings).  Something about the air in the room is different.  It smells like dirt, but it smells clean.  It's neat.  Also I just wanted to jump in it like I was three years old and it was a ball pit!

Earth Room has been on continuous view to the public since 1980, supported by the Dia Art Foundation, a mostly-privately-funded charitable organization.  The work was originally commissioned in 1977 and was the last of three such projects.  The first two - Munich (1968) and Darmstadt (1974) - no longer exist.

The same artist, Walter De Maria, has another work also supported by Dia just a few blocks away.  This one is called The Broken Kilometer.  (Unfortunately photography is not allowed in either exhibit, so you'll have to check out the websites.) This work is a floor installation made up of 500 polished brass rods, 2 meters long and 5 centimeters in diameter.  They are arranged in five rows of 100 rods each, the first two placed 80 millimeters apart, with each space after that growing by 5 millimeters.  I don't really get it, but apparently some people do - this one has been on view to the public since 1979.

As soon as E got off work we met up for another yoga class, then got some cider and headed home for a quiet Friday evening of packing and drinking.  Her last night in NY - how sad!

Goal #44

Goal #44: either finish Winter's Tale or get my stuff moved on Saturday.

Why the split goal (because it's kind of a cop-out)?  Well, here's the thing.  I'm supposed to move on Saturday.  Moving truck reserved and everything.  But if I ended up getting stranded in NYC unable to get home, that's probably just not going to happen.  In which case, I will finish my book.  By candlelight, if I have to.

Recap of Goal #43: major fail on the data entry, but that's not really my fault.  Our trial access expired to our new system, and it hasn't been reinstated yet.  I'm calling for a mulligan on this one.

Brooklyn, U.S.A. -- Yoga, Cemeteries, and Food!

Welcome (back) to Brooklyn!  I arrived Wednesday late morning, but somehow it took me forever to get to E's apartment, although I made it just in time for afternoon yoga at Kula Yoga Project in Tribeca, her chosen studio.  It had been a while - since the last time I was in NYC, actually - since I did yoga, so it was a little rough but good.  We made a trip to Whole Foods for sustenance, then back to the apartment so E could get ready for her fancy dinner at Boulud Sud, which sadly I was not invited to.  Although when the inviters found out I was in town, they said I should have come!  Damn!

I was tired and planned to go to bed early, but instead stayed up watching Nashville and Homeland until E got home.  I'm early in both shows, but loving both so far!

Thursday started with a run, something I haven't done since I ran the 5K with L - which, by the way, we successfully completed!  I did some work in the morning, then headed over to Green-Wood Cemetery to commune with the famous dead people (of which there are lots).  I saw graves of the following, among others:
- Dewitt Clinton, politician and education reformer
- Leonard Bernstein, composer
- Charles Ebbets, owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers
- Henry Chadwick, the "father of baseball"
- Henry Bergh, founder of the ASPCA
- William "Boss" Tweed, political machine unto himself
- William Steinway, crafter of performance pianos
- Samuel Morse, developer of the telegraph and Morse Code
- William Bayard Cutting, financier and philanthropist
- Horace Greeley, newspaperman and politician
- Louis Comfort Tiffany, designer.

And what's more, it's just a beautiful place!

The main entrance gate

 Inside the catacombs, which are closed to entry (I was peeking through the gate)

Doesn't this look like the Shire?

The chapel

After walking for a couple of hours I stopped in the chapel to rest, which, if you happen to be in the neighborhood and find yourself in need of one, also has a charming little restroom.

I left Green-Wood and headed to FIT to meet up with E.  There are a couple of fashion-related exhibits we'd been wanting to see, and FIT was one of our stops.  They have two exhibitions up now, both fairly small: Highlights from the Collection and Ivy Style.  I was thoroughly entertained by the Ivy Style exhibit, and it was fun to see how the conservative designers I'm most familiar with - Ralph Lauren, Brooks Brothers, Tommy Hilfiger, etc. - fit into the picture.  Generally I thought the pieces in the Highlights were more interesting and varied (and some of them were for women, so that helped).

From there we headed to 61 Local for the "Meet Your Maker: Hops and Crops Fest," which was a fundraiser for BK Farmyards, a great local organization which turns otherwise unused urban land into happy, productive farmland.  There were three chefs there who produced five tasting courses (one chef was unrepresented, and one got overzealous and made two things), plus some pie, all of which were paired with beer selected for the evening.  Matchups were as follows:
- Roasted cauliflower with Cayuga farro and green peanut puree, paired with a Southhampton double white ale (prepared by the chefs at Seersucker)
- Soup of three winter squashes with fried sunchokes and spiced honey, paired with a Carton pumpkin cream ale (prepared by the chef at Parish Hall)
- Kale Caesar salad with crusty bread and (he was the overachiever) a hollow bread sandwich (like a pita, only better) with barley, hot sauce, avocado, kale, cucumber, and other goodness, paired with a Ommegang hennepin (prepared by the chef/baker at Scratchbread)
- Chicken meatballs with arugula pesto, paired with a Kelso pilsner (prepared by the chefs at Court Street Grocers)
- Brown butter pumpkin pie, paired with a chocolate porter from Bitter and Esters (prepared by the chefs at Four & Twenty Blackbirds).

All of it was delicious, and we even took some hollow bread sandwiches home with us for lunch the next day!

I Lost My Place!

This happens to me all the time:

I'm reading.  I get distracted by something.  I look away from the book without noting where I'm leaving off.  A few minutes later I come back to the book and start reading again.

"Nope, I don't remember that part," I say to myself.  So I back up a few paragraphs.  "Read that, read that, read that."  I skip forward.

As it turns out, the place where I picked up reading was actually exactly where I left off, even though I had made no conscious effort to note the spot.

Is that weird?  Does that happen to anyone else?

What Ever Happened to a Community of Friends? Or, Marriage in a Mobile Society. Part II.

...Continued from yesterday.

This whole issue is interestingly tied to a recent episode of To The Best of Our Knowledge called "Privacy."  The guest for the middle segment, Hal Niedzviecki, discusses what he calls "peep culture," which is where we live now.  We put information about ourselves out there on Facebook or Twitter or what-have-you, and everyone else can "peep" into our lives.  It's not, he says, an issue of privacy.  The crux of the matter is our willingness to commoditize our privacy in return for something we want.  But that begs this question: if you're "confiding" in your new online "friends" by sharing  your life on the internet, are you really building friendships?  Where is the line between a true friendship and an unnecessary online overshare?  He has an especially relatable comment regarding use of these technologies to reach out to others:

"The loneliness aspect has much more to do with how we've structured our society into little suburban units connected to cars, connected to work places, the death of public space, the fact that we will now be moving around much more, disconnected from our families, we no longer have multi-generations living in a house in small towns.  So you really do have this sense of the anonymous that hurts people, and haunts them, in ways that I don't think they, or our society at large, fully understand.  So along come these new technologies and we're experimenting with them.  We're reaching out with these new technologies to see if we can ameliorate some of the negative consequences of mass society."

And in another episode just a couple of weeks later called "The New Alone," Steve Paulson conducts a thoughtful interview with Eric Klinenberg, author of Going Solo: The Extraordinary Rise and Surprising Appeal of Living Alone.  Much of the interview focuses on romantic relationships and people who live alone because they're unmarried, but Klinenberg ends with this to say about social media (horror of horrors!): "We're very early in this experiment of living with those technologies, so let's be open to the possibility that the story is going to change.  For now, the best research tells us that in fact people who are the most active on social media are also the most heavy users of face time - they like to be social.  And they use Facebook and Craigslist and MeetUp and the instant messaging programs and email to have more face-to-face ties.  On the other hand, we also know from some new research that people who are not on Facebook, but who have a lot of people in their lives who are, have a tendency to get left out of social interactions.  They miss out on things.  So in fact, some research I've seen recently shows that the real risk of isolation is in not being connected."

What does this mean?  Should I get on Facebook?  Maybe.  But for some reason, I don't think it is the answer to my questions.

The next segment on that show featured Michael Cobb, author of Single: Arguments for the Uncoupled.  Again (for obvious reasons), this focuses on couples of two, not the wider net of relationships.  But Cobb does address the issue of those other relationships insofar as to say we're putting an undue and untenable amount of pressure on our romantic relationships because we expect our "other" to be all things to us.  If we had enough other others, maybe we wouldn't be tanking our relationships by expecting too much.

"I think what was so fascinating is that we put happiness and fulfillment and life's meaning under the category of that significant other.  In fact, that significant other has to come and represent all of those meaningful amazing things in your life.  I think that's where the problem is, and that's where a lot of anxiety starts to creep into people's existence; it's because they think that this other person is what's going to make them happy, it's what's gonna complete them, it's what's going to make everything okay. . . . You don't have to foreclose the possibility that people will find a significant other and get into some kind of deep relationship over time.  What I'm most interested in is the supremacy of that one narrative, that then makes that couple, that partner that you choose, and overly anxious commitment.  Or let's just say, too much importance is put on that relationship, and often it can never actually fulfill all those expectations and all those needs.  And I think this is one of the reasons that lots of couples break apart."

[This quote is moving off a bit into different territory - is an analysis of couplehood due to complement this analysis of friendship?  Perhaps so, but I'm not sure I'm qualified for that job.]

Regardless, where I think Cobb's point relates to my post is that, because of the societal changes highlighted in the Times article, we often don't have the option of relying on friends and family for the things we once did - companionship, help with the bills, a call-anytime babysitter - so we put even more pressure on our spouses to be all things all the time.  Can the romantic relationship withstand the pressure?  I don't know.

But having some quality face time with friends might ease that pressure.  So set aside a little time, go forth, and make friends!

What Ever Happened to a Community of Friends? Or, Marriage in a Mobile Society. Part I.

Not too long ago, I read and reviewed MWF Seeking BFF.  To save you from having to re-read the review, the gist of it is this:  it's hard to admit you're looking for friends, hard to make them, and hard to keep them.  But they're important, so don't give up trying.

As we all get older, it seems that friendships cease to be just that, and instead become more like networks of convenience.  A "friend" used to be a person you spent time with just for the sake of spending time with them, because you liked them, because you enjoyed the conversation or both loved New Kids on the Block or whatever.  All too often, you grow up and they become a person who can offer you something: "Oh, I have a friend who's an accountant.  I'll ask them that question."  And the truth is that they probably don't mind (or wouldn't, if you weren't asking them at the busiest time of the year).  After all, an important facet of friendship is helping the other person out; they're happy to do it.

It's obvious why this relationship changes.  Everyone gets busy, buys houses, has kids, makes commitments, works too many hours, money gets tight.  If you can kill three birds with one stone, why not do it?  (1) See friend, (2) get help, (3) save money.

As I said, there is nothing wrong with that!  Everyone is busy - even people who don't buy houses or have kids or work too many hours.  (Can you think of anyone - anyone? - who says they have too much free time?  I can't.)  Saving time and money is important.  I just miss pure friendships, which exist purely because you like each other, because you value each other's point of view and sense of humor and advice.  To wit, last weekend I had lunch with a new friend - or at least someone I hope will be a new friend.  Lunch ran for five hours.  Know what we did?  We talked.  We talked about each other's lives, what's hard, what's frustrating, what's good. Neither of us answered our phones.  Neither of us had anywhere else we wanted to be.  We were just there, talking.  It was great.

Not long after I read MWF, an article came out in the New York Times called "Friends of a Certain Age: Why is it Hard to Make Friends Over 30?"  It's long but if you're interested in the subject, as I obviously am, it's totally worth the read.  Or just read this (which is, believe it or not, shorter than the original):

The article highlights the reasons why making new friends is difficult and why keeping the ones you already have is hard too.  Friendship generally requires three things: "proximity; repeated, unplanned interactions; and a setting that encourages people to let their guard down and confide in each other."

Requirements 1 and 2 are tough.  Proximity is hard these days because everyone is mobile.  People don't settle down in one neighborhood for their whole lives and stick with one job their whole careers.  Better opportunities are often elsewhere, and we're all willing to go somewhere else if the situation calls for it.  Can't blame anybody for doing that.  So proximity?  No more.  And unfortunately, the repeated, unplanned interactions - which are so closely tied to proximity - often go the way of the dodo as well.

If you have old friends from whom you are separated, it's often easy to continue that sense of confiding in one another - the third requirement.  They're those friends who inspire you to say, "whenever I talk to her, it's like no time passed at all."  I have lots of those people.  It's great to be able to confide.  Often they're the people who've known you the longest, so even though you're lacking proximity and interaction, their understanding of your situation and the advice they dish out is still on point.  But, lest we overlook what I just said, you're still missing two of the three elements which psychologists say are vital for a good friendship.  You still love these people dearly, but there is something missing from the friendship.

Once people are coupled up, it's even harder.  It's a four-pronged (or at least three-pronged, if there's a couple and a third wheel) match that needs to be made, rather than just a being a two-way street.  Do you like him?  Does he like her?  Does he like him? Does she like me?  It becomes all too easy to become "just the two of you" because, well, it's easy.  There's no weird chemistry.

In case that isn't all difficult enough, we also become more picky in selecting the people with whom we want to be friends.  "Manipulators, drama queens, egomaniacs: a lot of them just no longer make the cut."  Maybe they don't have to be completely eliminated as friends, but they can be pigeonholed as a certain type of friend: the martini friend, the brunch friend, the theater friend, the sappy movie friend.  But they may not be the friend you'd go running to in a life crisis which you need to overanalyze for days.

To be continued...

What I'm Reading Now -- Born to Run

Among runners, and really all athletes, Christopher McDougall's Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen cannot be read soon enough.

When it first came out it was selling like crazy, and it has continued with pretty regular sales ever since.  I guess word of mouth is doing wonders for it.  So, as I prepare to get back into running after taking a bit of a break, I'll dive into this too.  Maybe it'll give me a little inspiration.

Microtrends -- Take 2

I spent a lot of time at my new place this weekend, cleaning, running long-packed-away dishes and linens through their respective cleaning machines, getting ideas about how my furniture would fit.  All the while, I was listening to Microtrends - I got through the whole thing this weekend.

Truth is, there was nothing new in this book.  We all already know that the Latino vote is of growing importance, that men still make more than women, and that we are a sleep-deprived, caffeine-fueled nation.

Having said that, I think this book is probably 6 years old.  Maybe some of the trends were new at the time, but unfortunately the whole thing dated rather quickly.