Marcus' World

Anniversaries and Waterfalls

Today's our "monthly anniversary" (wedding date Feb. 27, so we always do something on the 27th of each month), when Helen and I would normally splurge on a nice dinner.  This month we both hosted up dinners at home and talked to each other on the phone.  That's not quite the same. However, Helen's exquisite touch with the US Postal Service ensured that an anniversary card arrived this evening (which I later learned that she purchased a month ago, almost as soon as she left).  I'm pleased to report that my own card--more of a general greeting--came Helen's way yesterday.

Next weekend I'm going to visit, for July 4th and Helen's birthday on July 7.  I can't wait! We're staying in NYC for two nights, and then spending our final night together in Danbury, Connecticut (where Helen's living this summer).

Yesterday, in New York, Olafur Eliasson and the Public Art Fund unveiled The New York City Waterfalls. These are four temporary falls (they come down in October), between 80 and 120 feet high, arranged at various junctures along the lower East River.  Is it art? nature? both? It's probably too early to say, but so far the critics have been kind. 

"The Gates of Central Park," in February 2005, was New York's last major public art event.   Many people poohpoohed the pretentiousness of Christo and Jean Claude, but I liked the community spirit that the Gates engendered.  (I've been blogging so long that I can link back to these old posts!)  Looks like The Waterfalls will have the same effect in a larger, wetter pocket of the city.  I'm looking forward to seeing them next weekend.

Eliot Spitzer, aka George Fox

My morning BART-MUNI ride was consumed by reading about every salacious detail of New York Governor Eliot Spitzer's procurement of the services of a high-priced call girl last month.

Obviously he should resign, for the good of his family, the good of his party, and the health of his state.

Of all the details about how he did it, this one stood out to me: Spitzer used the alias "George Fox" while booking the room for his secret rendezvous at the Mayflower Hotel.

First I thought that Spitzer chose "George Fox" randomly. Well, it turns out that a good friend of Spitzer's is named George Fox.  This shows how far Spitzer was willing to go not to get caught: if the tides had broken another way, an innocent man named George Fox could have had his career destroyed.  And the ever-so-virtuous governor of New York would have been the first to express outrage.

Almost as Good as New York Bagels

Since arriving in the Bay Area we've been on a quest to find an authentic New York-style bagel.  The offerings at Noah's New York Bagels don't even come close--an insult compounded by the fact that Noah's trades heavily in New York imagery inside its stores. (Then again, Subway sandwich shops don't have much in common with NYC either.)

Through the Yelp grapevine we learned about Berkeley Bagel (which is actually in Albany, CA). This morning we made a northern pilgrimage to the bagel shop, because Helen refuses to ride the bus. 

Once we arrived--almost an hour later--I was hungry. My original idea was to get a sesame seed bagel toasted with butter, just like I used to get on most Saturday mornings at the Bagel Mill.  However, Berkeley Bagel charges 10 cents for the toasting and 50 cents for the butter! Irrationally, then, I decided I might as well get a breakfast bagel...even though it cost more than my original humble idea, it didn't seem like that much more after all of the add-in costs were factored in. Helen also splurged, relative to our former habits, and got a bagel with strawberry cream cheese.

I'm pleased to report that the bagels were big and authentic--if not quite as hearty as the fare at Bagel Mill.  As Helen says, at least they "have the right idea" up there at Berkeley Bagel of Albany.

The First Tuesday Since

September 11, 2001 was a Tuesday, and as has often been noted, it was a picture perfect late summer day on the East Coast.

On that day we lived in Evanston, IL. Just ten days earlier Helen and I had enjoyed a wonderful wedding celebration with family and friends.  Helen's family from Hong Kong was supposed to fly home that Tuesday, but in the end they remained in the US for several more unplanned days. At work that day nobody could get anything done, especially with rampant rumors that Chicago's Sears Tower was next. We all just stood around the television in the conference room, and eventually went home early.

Almost three years later, Helen and I moved to New York City just as the GOP was preparing to exploit the fears of 9/11 at its nominating convention.  "America's Mayor" Rudy Giuliani offered up a particularly bombastic speech at Madison Square Garden that year; by that point the supposed link between September 11 and Saddam Hussein was mighty tenuous, and those weapons of mass destruction were nowhere to be found. It didn't matter. The Republicans had no shame about utilizing the trauma of a city they loathed to cement four more years in power.

The first anniversary of September 11 during our New York years took place on a Saturday. I watched the reading of the names on television, after debating the propriety of whether I should go down to Ground Zero instead. Compared to many others I was barely affected in 2001, and it felt presumptuous to count myself among the mourners.  In 2005 and 2006 I was still not sure how to observe the day, either as a New Yorker or simply as a human being. This divide between those who were--and those who weren't--will never be erased.

This year there's a greater emphasis than ever on moving beyond grief. Why now, at six years?  My best guess is that it's because we've cycled back to Tuesday, arguably the most "normal" day of the entire week.  Every five years will present the chance for an artificial milestone, but that's not available now.  Perhaps our entire country has reached a new stage of grief, in which we never forget what happened, but try to move on and make the world a better place. I hope so.

Missing New York

I'm not sure why a horrible morning commute makes me miss living in New York City, but it does. 

This Fragile City

Tonight's steam blast explosion in Midtown--which killed one person and injured at least 20--was a reminder of just how fragile New York is, even if Osama bin Laden were not trying to kill us all.  Of course people were anxiously concerned about terrorism, but all evidence so far points to antiquated infrastructure.

New York is a cutting edge town in many ways, but physically it is balky, old and lumbering.  Some personal cases in point--Last night we tried to run the air conditioner for a little while (we use it sparingly), and ended up blowing out three fuses! Our Internet connection does not work when the land line rings (a rare event), even though we have a splitter that should make everything work perfectly.  And when we came back from Nigeria, the pipes spit out water for the first few days.

This is far from deprivation; New York is an amazing place to live, and I will miss it very much.  But it is bursting at the seams. If 1 million more people join the City's ranks by 2030--the current projection--New York will have to step into the 21st century.

Last Book Club Meeting

Tonight I attended my last book club meeting in New York.  I started going two years ago, and have been a steady member month after month (although less reliably lately, due to travel conflicts).  The book was To the Lighthouse, a somewhat sober dose of Virginia Woolf that I enjoyed very much.  I read it during college, but like to think that my older and wiser perspective led to a greater appreciation this time.

Since it was my last meeting, I felt obligated to support McNally Robinson, the independent book store that has hosted us for more than a year. (We used to meet at a sandwich shop.) Any excuse for a book buying spree! I picked up the contemporary philosophical treatise Cosmopolitanism by Kwame Anthony Appiah, and the comic masterpiece A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole.

I'll miss my regular companions at the club meetings; after talking with them, I never failed to think about a book differently.  I'll even miss the sign at McNally Robinson that commands poetry lovers to, "Ask for Bukowski at the counter."  These were the days.

Run Mike Run

This week's announcement by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg that he is now an independent--upending his former status of Republican in Name Only (RINO), and longtime status of Democrat before that--has angered the two major parties. 

Like all good RINOs, Bloomberg's political views skew to the left.  As Bob Herbert relates in his tribute to the political status quo today (log-in required),  Democrats are especially worried that Bloomberg, if he chooses to run for President next year, will siphon votes from their side and retain the Presidency for the Republicans. Bloomberg just may be (gasp!!) the Ralph Nader of 2008.

Herbert is clearly alarmed at the prospect of a Bloomberg candidacy.  But his anxiety stems from a very tired premise: that a nation of almost 300 million people can only sustain two political parties.  It's not a democracy that Herbert wants, but merely an oligopoly that only allows party insiders to become President.

I'm not sure that I would vote for Bloomberg, but I'd appreciate having the option to do so.  I resented Bloomberg's Mayoral candidacy of 2005, when he turned New York's airwaves into a cult of personality focused on his Mayoral glory.  With that said, he has just as much right to run for President as Hilary Clinton, John McCain, or Rudy Giuliani.  This is America, right?

Then again, that kind of crazy thinking is what gets Ralph Nader into trouble.

Trash Picking

Tonight Helen and I attempted to walk across Central Park to dinner on the West Side.  We won't have too many more opportunities to make that walk, and tonight seemed perfect. 

"Seemed" is the operative word; it started raining as soon as we set out. So we took the bus across instead.  Since there would still be plenty of daylight and sunshine after dinner (assuming the rain had stopped), I figured we would walk back instead.

And that's what we set out to do. Around 7:30 PM we were casually headed east on West 82nd St., when Helen spotted a throwaway New Yorker cover spoof of the world from a Parisian's perspective. It was sitting next to a sidewalk tree, free for the taking! We have a replica of the original cover hanging in our apartment, so this was the perfect  complement.

There was only one problem: the picture was heavy. So we ended up taking the bus back across the park as well. That walk just wasn't meant to be.

Our burst of trash picking occurred on the same day that the Times published a major article about freeganism. Freegans subsist on the slightly bruised produce that supermarkets throw away, and their clothes come from the dumpster rather than the Gap.  New York City is freegan central, because New Yorkers produce a lot of garbage. 

Freeganism is an anti-consumerist philosophy that is utterly dependent on consumerism.  After all, if people didn't throw away their clothes, freegans would have to walk around naked.

I admire the freegan impulse, despite the moral ambiguities.  Freegans do not want to be complicit in wasting precious natural resources, and in the end who can blame them?

With that said, I have no shame about acquiring free stuff as an indulgence rather than a statement.  There are many ways to make a difference, and eating out of the trash is low on my list.

   

Sushi, Graphic Design, and the Practice of Librarianship

Last night Helen and I attended a wonderful sushi party in Hamilton Heights, a neighborhood just west of Harlem that we had never been to before.  Even on a tiny island, there are still new places to  explore after almost three years in New York.

At the party we met Brad Paley, a freelance graphic designer who has worked on many Wall Street projects.  He earns lots of money for that work, which he uses to fund  pro bono projects . For example, right now he is working with the United Nations Development Program to provide people with an easy-to-understand visual depiction of what their individual health risks are, and how these risks compare to those faced by larger populations. Besides that, he makes pretty cool calendars. 

Brad believes that his work is akin to librarianship, because he helps people "organize information"  visually. At one point he talked about how to help people make sense of an object that has no "metadata."  He has even worked with the Regenstrief Institute--one of the nation's most important laboratories for medical informatics advances--to discuss "library science visualizations."

At the moment databases such as PubMed are text-based, even though much of medicine depends on processing visual information.  NLM is currently exploring how to provide long-term access to "interactive publications," such as an article that includes a sound file of a heartbeat.  But for the most part, health sciences libraries provide access to online versions of what is (or could be) printed on paper.

People like Brad can provide great insight into how to visually depict the contents of a database, and work with medical informaticists to improve our ability to search for visual information.  We all need to think about how to provide access to something besides words.

Right now I am the chair of MLA's Librarians without Borders task force. Our charge is to find ways to link librarians around the world closer together, especially in times of crisis when reliable information is crucial.  But if people like Brad Paley are librarians in their own right--and I think they are--then maybe I should join a "Librarianship without Borders" task force too. Our professional boundaries are expanding and dissolving at the same time.