gloomyjoe

swamp tour

2009-04-03T13:09:00.003-04:00

A late addition from my recent trip to New Orleans. I want on a boat tour of a bayou outside town. Saw gators and everything. Here are my best pictures.

Swamp Tour

new orleans cemeteries

2009-03-15T09:38:00.003-04:00

I just posted some photos I took of two famous old New Orleans Cemeteries.

Check them out at Picasa.

what opera are you?

2009-03-10T17:43:00.004-04:00

The Metropolitan has a clever quiz on its website that supposedly tells you what opera you're most compatible with.

I took it and got Verdi's "Il Trovatore."

Quoting: "People just don’t get you sometimes. But you’re not crazy—the world is. Just look around! Your responses are the only sane reactions to an off-kilter world. Can’t anybody else see this? Actually, Verdi did, and his masterful vision of a world gone mad, Il Trovatore, has been as misunderstood by prosaic minds as you often are."

Which is (a) scary close to the way I see myself, and (b) prompted me to buy tickets to go see trovatore the end of April. Here's to online marketing!

the ubiquity of distress

2009-03-10T17:38:00.002-04:00

A friend just sent me a link to this post on the NY Times Blog. It's interesting and scary like most financial reporting these days. But I am particularly taken with the title...I may have to rename this (sad and forsaken) blog.

the magic of opera?

2008-09-15T14:12:00.002-04:00

I love the lovely and lovable diva Renee Fleming. Nothing but the greatest respect for her talent. I'm sure you feel the same way; who wouldn't?

Still, without meaning to be mean about it, I have to observe that the new Met outdoor ad campaign being plastered all over the city seems to be less about the Magic of Opera, and more about the Magic of Photoshop.

I'm just sayin'.

hell in a handbasket, part ii: running out of elements

2008-07-03T07:32:00.000-04:00

The second in a continuing series looking at the myriad ways we're doomed.

It seems global supplies of rare earth elements, like iridium and gallium, which we need to make our TVs go, are running quite low, and could be depleted by as soon as 2017.

I'm not sure this qualifies as a species-ending event, but it might force us all to (egad) read or whatever for entertainment.

shocking self discovery

2008-07-02T08:35:00.001-04:00

Last weekend I realized, quite suddenly and with no warning or discernable transition, that I have gone from noticing and being somewhat intimidated by guys who can lift more than I can at the gym to noticing and feeling somewhat superior to guys who can’t lift as much as I can at the gym. And this indicates that I have somehow, quite unintentionally, become a jock.

I’m shocked and embarrassed by this.

*Note: not my arm. But almost.

patron of the arts

2008-07-01T09:40:00.003-04:00

I went to the Affordable Art Fair a couple of weeks ago and, lo, bought some Art I could Afford. It is nice when things work out like that. Actually I was somewhat surprised how many pieces I liked—there was less overtly political or difficult or annoying than I was expecting. On the other hand, some pieces were a little too spendy (“affordable” is defined as anything under $10,000, which I consider ‘doable’ but not ‘affordable’).

But in the end, at almost the last booth I visited, I ran across a couple of pieces that I more than liked.

Ando Shinji is Japanese artist who makes floral prints that are modern and wildly expressive and beautiful to me. The particular piece of his I liked best, after seeing all of the ones the gallery had, was of sunflowers, but on their sides, arcing across the top of the page, facing away from the viewer. Melancholy and nearly monochrome, with lots of negative space. Very me. While this was my favorite of his pieces, I liked nearly everything of his I saw.

The other contender was by Suzanne Marshall, a New Mexico artist who makes somewhat strange and sinister and biological (or at least sciencey-looking) prints. Here’s the one I liked most; it’s called “Nascent.”

So I saw these pieces, but of course had to circle around the show a second time and see the other things that had caught my eye again, and weigh them against one another to figure out what I should buy. And in the end I came back to the Ando and the Marshall. It was extremely tough to choose.

Helpfully the gallery owner (a very nice woman) thought to suggest “why don’t you buy both and I’ll give you a discount on them?”

Which, given that I was going to buy both anyway, worked out quite well.

My new art made me entirely happy, though I’m not sure if the universe felt the same: the moment I got the pieces safely ensconced in bubble wrap and headed for the exit, the skies opened up in one of the strongest downpours I’ve seen in quite some time. So I stopped in the café and had a drink and did a crossword puzzle while the universe made up its mind.

hell in a handbasket, part i

2008-06-19T08:30:00.001-04:00

Welcome to the first in a continuing series of posts highlighting the ways our world is falling apart. A deeply gloomy topic that will hopefully inspire more frequent entries on my part.

Closing the ozone hole over Antarctica accelerates global warming! Fabulous. Maybe we should all go out and buy some aerosol deodorant and Freon!

Well, at least some folks think this will happen, based on their climate model. Some folks don’t. There’s disagreement. I did fine one pretty irrefutable statement on the matter:

A new study led by Columbia University researchers has found that the closing of the ozone hole, which is projected to occur sometime in the second half of the 21st century, may significantly affect climate change in the Southern Hemisphere, and therefore, the global climate.

“MAY significantly affect”? Great. And which way? Who knows. Bottom line: environmental scientists have NO CLUE what’s going on, and no environmental models encompass enough of the variables that drive the climate to be worth a brass farthing.

But we’re probably doomed anyway.

black metal pastries

2008-06-18T15:25:00.002-04:00

So, it’s not quite goth cooking. But almost. The Black Oven is certainly one of those nice unexpected juxtapositions…two great tastes that taste great together, sorta kinda. Who can resist a recipe that says

“Try baking them, and consider the fact that the mastery of brownies is parallel to the mastery of the occult.”?

Actually I’d love to see The Black Oven as a cooking show. It’d be a colder, angrier version of BBC’s “Posh Nosh,” I suspect. Which if you haven’t seen it, you really should.

P.S. If you looked at the title and thought it said "black metal pasties," shame on you.

want, part i

2008-06-17T21:57:00.002-04:00

In an effort to force myself to post here more regularly, I am going to start keeping a chronicle of things I run across that fill me with desire. And, lest you think this is suddently going to get overly interesting, let me emphasize things. Not people. Maybe places.

Like, for instance, these wine glasses, elegantly designed to symbolize the seven deadly sins. Appropriate enough that I should lust after lust.
Originally ran across these at boingboing, which has proven a pretty good source of wants for me in the past.

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 in bloom? No way.

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 opposed to say "sincerely yours," which generally people aren't in e-mails.

But anyway, when I'm harried, stressed, or in a rush, I invariably have to catch myself because I'll write "Beset regards" instead. And it always makes me smile, because it's even truer than "Best." Someday I'm going to say the hell with it and just start closing my e-mails with that deliberately.

Someday when I'm in a much more senior position than I'm in now, that is.

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 Illustrated. Their recipes are incredibly fussy sometimes, and time consuming generally, but only once have I made something that was less than amazing.

So when the most recent issue arrived, with a recipe for "no-knead bread," I was intrigued. Essentially Cook's is cribbing from a technique first popularized in the NY Times based on a recipe from a baker from Sullivan St. Bakery here in NY. The point is: make a wetter bread dough than usual, let time take the place of kneading, and cook in a covered Dutch oven to seal in moisture and guarantee a good crust.

Of course, Cook's Illustrated can't leave well enough alone. They promise better, more consistent results, but leave it to them to have a no-knead bread recipe that requires...kneading. Only 15-20 kneads, but still. It is so very Cook's Illustrated to do that you can't even hold it against them, just shrug and laugh and go on. They also add beer and a tiny bit of vinegar to the dough, to build a little more artisanal flavor.

Anyway, last weekend, blessed with an abundance of time, I finally plotted out the 18 or so hours required to make my first loaf of bread.

You've already seen what came out of the oven. It was perhaps a tiny bit dense; I think a slightly longer rise or a rise in a slightly warmer room would've done wonders. Still, though, words can't express how pleased I was at the general Platonic Ideal breadiness of the bread. The crust was indeed amazing...solid enough to tap your finger on it and get that satisfying hollow 'thonk' of great, fresh bread.
For my next trick, I shall bake a cake...

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. Amazing. Mind boggling. Mind-altering... For those not in the know it's safe to say that "Einstein" is probably the most important opera/music theater work of the latter half of the 20th Century, and it's not really like anything else. And it's incredibly hard to sing/perform. I get repetitive stress disorder just thinking about it. I just hope someone is brave enough to put on a fully staged version again before I get too old to appreciate it.

Rather than me waste more words on how astounding it was, let me borrow someone else's.

The scene: the crowded Carnegie Hall stairway.
The cast: 2 young hipster guys, annoyingly coifed and slightly made up. One having a cellphone conversation, the other chiming in.

Guy on Phone: "One of the top ten experiences of my life. Top five even." ... "Like, up there with loss of virginity."
Other guy: "Top ten, yeah...maybe top twelve"
Guy on Phone: "yadda yadda....he says top 12."
Other guy: "Well. Definitely top 20. Not top 10."

I don't think I even HAVE 12 experiences to fill out a top list. But I have to agree that this was pretty high up there.

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 dedicated to her late husband in his skin. Hunter later learns that the widow has remarried and wonders whether her second husband sees himself as volume two. Hunter concludes, "Let us hope that this was strictly a limited edition."

A nod to the always-eclectic Kircher Society for pointing me in this fascinating direction.

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 'Troy' look good." And I say "It was truly awful, but I am certain in a year or two, something worse will come along."

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 Music
Wednesday: Reception for the centennial exhibit at the Japan Society, Chinese and Japanese Zen portraiture
Thursday: Pirates of Penzance at CityOpera
Friday: *Ahem* "300," the Frank Miller comic-turned-movie
Saturday: The incomparable Tallis Scholars at Riverside Church

I think perhaps what's most remarkable about that roster of events is they really, really don't have much of anything in common. I'm nothing if not eclectic.

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 chose it. Once you've had a Sphere named after you, I don't think there's any limit to what you can do.

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 destinations on Staten Island. One is Ettingville, which, fine, most interesting thing about it is the first thing Google finds is a French birdwatching site. But the other is New Dorp, and I find myself a little obsessed with it.

Bad enough my mind keeps trying to process it like it's spelled wrong. I can't explain why, but Dorp is one of those combinations of sounds, like 'aspic,' that just grates and vexes and annoys. I thought maybe it had something to do with sounding like 'dork,' though of course 'York' sounds like 'dork' too, and I find 'York' romantic and wonderful. If any of the good people of New Dorp are reading this, I apologize, but it sounds like the ass-end of nowhere. And to think there should be more than one such place; plain old Dorp not being good enough, they had to go make a new one.

So, research. It's Dutch, of course (all funny words are, in the end), and it simply means 'small town.' So Nieuwe Dorp (which would at least have the excuse of clearly being non-English) became New Dorp at some point, and that's how it stayed. And they have a high school, and it seems people actually live there, and are...content? and think after a long trip "ah, home to New Dorp, thank God." I'm mystified by all of it.

Tangentially, and this will end my small obsession with this topic, 'dorp' presents an interesting example of a word whose sound conveys its meaning. I don't mean onomatopoeia, which, duh. I mean more abstract words that nonetheless convey their idea in the phonetics of the word itself. I'm convinced they exist, despite what philologists and linguists would say about arbitrary associations of sound and meaning. It's not just 35 years of association in my brain that make 'joy' convey joy, or 'sparkle,' well, sparkliness. Or, maybe it is and I'm crazy.

But I had no idea what Dorp meant a week ago, even if I knew what I thought it meant (see: ass-end of nowhere). And in my digging around, I discovered that if it's value-neutral in Old Dutch, not so in Afrikaans. Dorp (the London industrial-punk band)'s myspace page explains:

Kevin and Piet’s heritage also gave them their name, ‘Dorp’ being an Afrikaans word for ‘small village’ or ‘shanty town’. “We were very against all these bands who were popping up in South Africa and they were grabbing all these Seattle-sounding grunge names,” says Piet. “But there was so much going on in South Africa, but not only that, we were going to get the uncoolest name we could think of. When something is really backwards, you can say that is ‘so Dorp’.”

Q.E.D.

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 noise like some pigeons on your air conditioner and you move the curtain aside to shoo them away and you see something like this.
Okay, not especially gloomy. In fact, damned exciting. And the point is, this sort of thing happens all the time here. We just keep it a secret.

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, good to know that

Rebecca Wood chief executive of the Alzheimer's Research Trust said, "What I find particularly interesting about this study is the fact that it is an individual's perception of being lonely rather than their actual degree of social isolation that seems to correlate most closely with their Alzheimer's risk."

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 wouldn't have a venue for little gems like this.

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 thing I know the aforementioned couple of guys is talking to me. They’re clearly college kids, good looking in a vaguely all-American, if not quite Abercrombie and Fitchy, way, and they’ve got their arms around one another and one of them says, “Excuse me, but if we were to get married, would you be offended?”

And I think about it for a moment and come up with two replies, one more true and one more succinct. I opt for brevity, and say “Not really. Maybe if I knew you personally…” And they asked why, of course, and I say “well, you might be jerks, or he might be totally wrong for you or something.” And they laugh and shake my hand and go on their way presumably to accost the woman sitting on the next bench up the way.

The true answer, though, would have been, “Yes, a part of me would be offended. Most of me would say, good luck, be happy. But part of me truly believes that the entire world should be as miserable and lonely as I am. And that part would be offended that you’re not.”

See, I do have tact. Sometimes.

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 discord and lawlessness, at least now and then.

I have a strong aversion to Wikipedia, would normally not link there. But I've stolen the cool picture above from them, and really the piece on Eris seems pretty good. Not that I'd go writing a school paper with that as my only source, mind you.

Speaking of things that make me gloomy, demoting Pluto certainly did. Seems pretty low to me. I have great respect for Neil DeGrasse-Tyson, the head of the planetarium here (he's probably the best public speaker I've seen lately, and certainly the most patient). But his unending crusade to demote Pluto was, well, pretty crappy in my eyes.

I'm off to say some prayers to Eris and Dysnomia.