...The quiet calm of just listening.
The best advice I ever received on a beach...
"Just listen."
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Saturday, July 19, 2008
Live-blogging my First Ocean Swim this Year
4:49pm(est) - so far it seems that the water has not affected the keybo__
***
***
Also, looks like we (Maxwell's Demon) may have another gig happening at Pianos, opening for The Darts on August 5! Take the Edge off Tuesday!
I'm twenty minutes outside of Raleigh on my way southward. I have the Raleigh (which I like far more than the city of the same name) in the back of the car. It's humid as hell. This is my first time south of Bayonne, New Jersey since January. And I'm realizing that I'm going to need to learn to love the south again.
That old plan of setting up shop in Boone is sounding better and better.
That old plan of setting up shop in Boone is sounding better and better.
Monday, July 14, 2008
for Love of the Machine
I've been thinking a lot lately about the relationship between the work we do on things and the attachment we feel towards them.
As I've mentioned before, my bicycle's on old criterium racer (short urban race courses) from a time when water bottles were hung from the handlebars. Accordingly, there's no place to attach water bottles to my frame. After some research, I found a nifty little device designed for the dark art of cycling, triathlon. It's a double water bottle holder that hangs down from the seat. In the as-aerodynamic-as-possible world of time-trialing/triathletics, the idea is that putting the water bottles behind your ass will keep the round, already-aerodynamic objects from interrupting your slipstream. For me, it was a nice way to avoid drilling my frame without putting three pounds of water over my front wheel (and thus affecting handling). I should mention that the apparatus cost me a pretty penny (at least what I'd made that day). So my second ride out with them, I'm about to climb over the Manhattan bridge when the harsh terrain of Fulton Street (first paved street in the Bedford-Stuyvesant of the 1800s and apparently untouched ever since)knocks a pivot bolt loose and the whole apparatus swings precariously over my rear wheel until i get to the Manhattan Bridge and flag down a fellow cyclist to ask after his toolkit.
Testament to NYC's bike culture, this guy pulls over immediately and digs through his pack for the tools I need, making small talk as I work. It quickly becomes apparent that getting to this one little bolt will require taking the damn thing apart, and I give the dude an "I'm really sorry to be taking all of your time" look, and he just smiles. "This is why they call triathlon an executive sport," he says. "Guys are so rich they never need to work on their stuff. They just buy a new one."
Likewise, I was reading a book in the local Barnes & Noble, the other day while waiting for Kay, entitled "The Need for the Bike". It was by a french book publisher who has been an avid rider and follower of racing all his life, composed of little vignettes about cycling. Phenomenally well written, I recommend it. Anyway, he does a bit about the difference between racers and mechanics. To unjustly simplify, racers hate the bike, it is the source of their pain; mechanics love it deeply as a thing of beauty.
A few nights ago I was repacking the bearings on what I call the Raleigh's race wheelset -- very light, quick clincher wheels that I built a little while ago, wheels that would definitely hold their own in a cat 4 or cat 5 road race (if paired with a quicker rider than me). If you've never repacked bearings, it's not a pleasant or particularly fun job. You have to take apart the wheel hub, remove about 18-24 ball bearings caked in old, grimy, gritty grease, clean each of them, clean all traces of the old grease from the hub, repack the hub with new, very sticky, very messy grease, plop the bearings back in and reassemble the hub, all while straining your eyes to make sure not a single speck of dust gets in there with them. Then you have to adjust the hub to spin freely without any play along the axle. And as I was doing this, I started wondering how many riders in the whole Tour de France peleton had done this since their first ten-speed. I was holding a wheel that I had built, knowing that if my front end was wobbling later, it'd be my fault. Knowing each spoke and bearing that'd carry me downhill in excess of 40mph.
That's why I dig my mechanic buddy Malcom. He's a racer. Damn fast. But he has the look of a man who now cares for the machines he used to abuse. It's a balance.
Our ability to act upon the world is what makes us human... but it's the old Hegelian thing: if we just get what we want, without having to go through the motions of bringing it about, we're the same as servants who bring about only what they're told to do.
As I've mentioned before, my bicycle's on old criterium racer (short urban race courses) from a time when water bottles were hung from the handlebars. Accordingly, there's no place to attach water bottles to my frame. After some research, I found a nifty little device designed for the dark art of cycling, triathlon. It's a double water bottle holder that hangs down from the seat. In the as-aerodynamic-as-possible world of time-trialing/triathletics, the idea is that putting the water bottles behind your ass will keep the round, already-aerodynamic objects from interrupting your slipstream. For me, it was a nice way to avoid drilling my frame without putting three pounds of water over my front wheel (and thus affecting handling). I should mention that the apparatus cost me a pretty penny (at least what I'd made that day). So my second ride out with them, I'm about to climb over the Manhattan bridge when the harsh terrain of Fulton Street (first paved street in the Bedford-Stuyvesant of the 1800s and apparently untouched ever since)knocks a pivot bolt loose and the whole apparatus swings precariously over my rear wheel until i get to the Manhattan Bridge and flag down a fellow cyclist to ask after his toolkit.
Testament to NYC's bike culture, this guy pulls over immediately and digs through his pack for the tools I need, making small talk as I work. It quickly becomes apparent that getting to this one little bolt will require taking the damn thing apart, and I give the dude an "I'm really sorry to be taking all of your time" look, and he just smiles. "This is why they call triathlon an executive sport," he says. "Guys are so rich they never need to work on their stuff. They just buy a new one."
Likewise, I was reading a book in the local Barnes & Noble, the other day while waiting for Kay, entitled "The Need for the Bike". It was by a french book publisher who has been an avid rider and follower of racing all his life, composed of little vignettes about cycling. Phenomenally well written, I recommend it. Anyway, he does a bit about the difference between racers and mechanics. To unjustly simplify, racers hate the bike, it is the source of their pain; mechanics love it deeply as a thing of beauty.
A few nights ago I was repacking the bearings on what I call the Raleigh's race wheelset -- very light, quick clincher wheels that I built a little while ago, wheels that would definitely hold their own in a cat 4 or cat 5 road race (if paired with a quicker rider than me). If you've never repacked bearings, it's not a pleasant or particularly fun job. You have to take apart the wheel hub, remove about 18-24 ball bearings caked in old, grimy, gritty grease, clean each of them, clean all traces of the old grease from the hub, repack the hub with new, very sticky, very messy grease, plop the bearings back in and reassemble the hub, all while straining your eyes to make sure not a single speck of dust gets in there with them. Then you have to adjust the hub to spin freely without any play along the axle. And as I was doing this, I started wondering how many riders in the whole Tour de France peleton had done this since their first ten-speed. I was holding a wheel that I had built, knowing that if my front end was wobbling later, it'd be my fault. Knowing each spoke and bearing that'd carry me downhill in excess of 40mph.
That's why I dig my mechanic buddy Malcom. He's a racer. Damn fast. But he has the look of a man who now cares for the machines he used to abuse. It's a balance.
Our ability to act upon the world is what makes us human... but it's the old Hegelian thing: if we just get what we want, without having to go through the motions of bringing it about, we're the same as servants who bring about only what they're told to do.
Friday, July 11, 2008
Incorrect
“Every technological advance we’ve made in the 21st century and throughout the 20th has come from the United States of America.”
-Sen. John McCain
+ The Internal Combustion Engine / Automobile (Germany)
+ The Jet Engine (Germany / Italy / Great Britain)
+ Radio Communication (Italy)
+ Sonar (Great Britain / Germany)
+ Binary computers (Germany)
+ Radar (debatable, but largely Great Britain)
+ Radiation Therapy (Britain)
+ The Maser, predecessor to the Laser (USSR)
+ The Helicopter (France)
+ The Modern Ballpoint Pen (Hungary)
+ The Three-point Seat-belt (Sweden)
+ Anti-lock brakes (France)
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
In other news, Damien is back in town from the UAE, if only briefly. This past weekend we had a gathering of the whole clan up at his parent's house in Westchester. Like all such gatherings, the activities vacillated between the extremely civil (delicious food, delicious wine, many toasts, white linen shirts) and the bacchanalian (3am wrestling matches by torchlight, delicious whiskey, dancing until four), punctuated by moments of pure childish fun, like swimming out to cliffs and jumping into the river. D leaves for the middle east again soon, but its very good to know that they heyday of these sort of family gatherings is far from past.
The next day, Kay trained up to join me, and she and I head out solo to an old hiking spot that D and I used to do once or twice a year, called Breakneck Ridge (technically we do Mt.Taurus). It's on the
Hudson River, on the border of Duchess County, a few miles north and on the
other side of the river from West Point. Lots of fun rock obstacles (its an absolute blast to do with a set of climbing shoes) and a phenomenal view of the Hudson river. You know, grab some sandwiches, ditch the car on the side of the road and just go. Kay and I went a little off course on our way down and found the
remains of an old set of cabins in the woods, and these strange stone buildings from the 1910's. Walking along a trail that had been partially rerouted due to an avalanche a few years back, we came upon a stone wall that D and I hadn't found before. It'd been breached by one of the boulders in the avalanche, creating this great post-apocalyptic affect (We've been watching too much battlestar galactica). So naturally we go through the breach and through a field up on to an elevated mound, like the kind you'd build to put a railroad track on, except this one is overgrown and has tire ruts. So Kay and I hop up onto it and follow its curve into the forest. After a few minutes, we were face to face with an arcane stone building, bricked up and sitting in the middle of the elevated right-of-way, in the middle of this forest. We're approaching it from the rear, and suddenly the whole forest seems eerily silent. We get to the building and work our way around the side. There's a bricked-up window with bars over it, only the bricks have been blown out, by the looks of it from the inside. That's when I started thinking "this is the point in the movie where no one hears from us again." We edge around to the front of the building, where there is a metal door. Above the metal door is a coat of arms involving some beavers and windmills (*not* swastikas, as Kay would later insist)and above the coat of arms is emblazoned "ERECTED 1913". The door itself is the most interesting part--It's clearly missing several locks, and has a bar welded across it. on the bar is a small square of metal, painted bright red, on which was welded "15". It was inexplicably creepy. Definitely unspace. We continue on our way at a quickened pace, past a closed gate at an intersection in the right-of-way, where there are fresh tire-tracks. We duck off the right of way and find our way to a trail system that I am familiar with. Somehow, we still manage to stray off course a fair amount, and find ourselves on a very well-maintained trail through some dense forest, surrounded by the remains of old stone farm buildings. We finally make it back to the road, about a mile south of the car, and hike along the side of the road, tucked close against the shoulder as cars speed by us doing 65, 75 mph. All of a sudden we hear this snarling growl-bark-snort of some creature from the reeds next to us and we jump back into the road, and start running, leaving the beast behind and contending with BMWs on the open road.
I am sore and it was awesome.
The next day, Kay trained up to join me, and she and I head out solo to an old hiking spot that D and I used to do once or twice a year, called Breakneck Ridge (technically we do Mt.Taurus). It's on the
Hudson River, on the border of Duchess County, a few miles north and on the
other side of the river from West Point. Lots of fun rock obstacles (its an absolute blast to do with a set of climbing shoes) and a phenomenal view of the Hudson river. You know, grab some sandwiches, ditch the car on the side of the road and just go. Kay and I went a little off course on our way down and found the
remains of an old set of cabins in the woods, and these strange stone buildings from the 1910's. Walking along a trail that had been partially rerouted due to an avalanche a few years back, we came upon a stone wall that D and I hadn't found before. It'd been breached by one of the boulders in the avalanche, creating this great post-apocalyptic affect (We've been watching too much battlestar galactica). So naturally we go through the breach and through a field up on to an elevated mound, like the kind you'd build to put a railroad track on, except this one is overgrown and has tire ruts. So Kay and I hop up onto it and follow its curve into the forest. After a few minutes, we were face to face with an arcane stone building, bricked up and sitting in the middle of the elevated right-of-way, in the middle of this forest. We're approaching it from the rear, and suddenly the whole forest seems eerily silent. We get to the building and work our way around the side. There's a bricked-up window with bars over it, only the bricks have been blown out, by the looks of it from the inside. That's when I started thinking "this is the point in the movie where no one hears from us again." We edge around to the front of the building, where there is a metal door. Above the metal door is a coat of arms involving some beavers and windmills (*not* swastikas, as Kay would later insist)and above the coat of arms is emblazoned "ERECTED 1913". The door itself is the most interesting part--It's clearly missing several locks, and has a bar welded across it. on the bar is a small square of metal, painted bright red, on which was welded "15". It was inexplicably creepy. Definitely unspace. We continue on our way at a quickened pace, past a closed gate at an intersection in the right-of-way, where there are fresh tire-tracks. We duck off the right of way and find our way to a trail system that I am familiar with. Somehow, we still manage to stray off course a fair amount, and find ourselves on a very well-maintained trail through some dense forest, surrounded by the remains of old stone farm buildings. We finally make it back to the road, about a mile south of the car, and hike along the side of the road, tucked close against the shoulder as cars speed by us doing 65, 75 mph. All of a sudden we hear this snarling growl-bark-snort of some creature from the reeds next to us and we jump back into the road, and start running, leaving the beast behind and contending with BMWs on the open road.
I am sore and it was awesome.
It really does feel as though L is a wholly and completely different person. I was waiting for something like this -- when she left me it was like someone had thrown a switch in her brain. She won't return any calls. The scariest part about the whole thing is that I just don't know who she is. People say things like that a lot. I really mean this one.
Monday, June 30, 2008
Friday, June 27, 2008
The show was phenomenal.
Phenomenal.
The album looks fantastic, and a lot of people who are often hard to please have been offering us a fair amount of praise on a job well done. I know it's been a while, but we've all been breathing about a week-long sigh of relief. Maxwell's Demon, B-Sides and Rarities is a reality.
The release show at the National Underground was sweaty, packed and noisy, with everyone primed to go by our phenomenal friends in the band Pieces (who consistently amaze me).
Check out these vids from our awesome party (drink a beer as you watch, you'll feel like you were there):
Confidence Man into Life During Wartime. Dont miss the great band banter at 3:10
An excerpt from On the Run. Look at that crazy devil on lead guitar!
Love is a Destroyer
and the big finale by popular demand,
Four Square
If you think that rocked, come out and see us at Piano's on July 5th.
Phenomenal.
The album looks fantastic, and a lot of people who are often hard to please have been offering us a fair amount of praise on a job well done. I know it's been a while, but we've all been breathing about a week-long sigh of relief. Maxwell's Demon, B-Sides and Rarities is a reality.
The release show at the National Underground was sweaty, packed and noisy, with everyone primed to go by our phenomenal friends in the band Pieces (who consistently amaze me).
Check out these vids from our awesome party (drink a beer as you watch, you'll feel like you were there):
Confidence Man into Life During Wartime. Dont miss the great band banter at 3:10
An excerpt from On the Run. Look at that crazy devil on lead guitar!
Love is a Destroyer
and the big finale by popular demand,
Four Square
If you think that rocked, come out and see us at Piano's on July 5th.
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
The Radiated Library
Jaylinked me to this utterly fascinating piece in the Times.
Much to my dismay I cannot find any of Otlet's works for sale in English, and can barely find them for sale (or for free, for that matter) in any other language. Interwebs? Help me out here.
Michael Buckland's Otlet Site
An interesting bibliography
Monday, June 16, 2008
Doesn't break any Dad rules
Spent Fathers' Day upstate with my folks and my grandfather, playing boccie and pinochle, cursing, and generally having a fantastic time.
While in town at a farmers market with my mother, she made a suggestion that I liked--namely that when the lease in Brooklyn runs out in a year, I spend the summer upstate. It would cost almost nothing, and would be remarkably relaxing, to get a job waiting tables in Cooperstown and spend the remainder of my time reading and writing hundreds of miles away from any big city. I just may do that.
Anyway, my father performed an emblematic act of dad-hood when, as I was getting ready to leave for the city, he looked at the bent and dented hood of my Volvo and decided to pull it back into shape using, almost exclusively, his bare hands. That's the spirit of fathers' day, right there.
---
Took the bike upstate with me, where the terrain is absolutely brutal and challenges the gearing on the little Raleigh. I rolled into the first downhill I found at about 20mph. I went into an aggressive tuck, and was very quickly catapulted to 41mph. My highest gear, about 105 gear inches, was completely useless, and all I could do was tuck and coast. I kept a pace of about 25mph on the flat roads, ducked around the neighboring village and came back up the hill from the another angle. The uphill was just as relentless, with my smallest gear (65ish gear inches) quickly becoming equally useless torture. I made it though, and that ridiculously painful loop should serve nicely as my benchmark course for a while. I hate to say it, but I'm beginning to understand why modern bikes have 7000 gears.
While in town at a farmers market with my mother, she made a suggestion that I liked--namely that when the lease in Brooklyn runs out in a year, I spend the summer upstate. It would cost almost nothing, and would be remarkably relaxing, to get a job waiting tables in Cooperstown and spend the remainder of my time reading and writing hundreds of miles away from any big city. I just may do that.
Anyway, my father performed an emblematic act of dad-hood when, as I was getting ready to leave for the city, he looked at the bent and dented hood of my Volvo and decided to pull it back into shape using, almost exclusively, his bare hands. That's the spirit of fathers' day, right there.
---
Took the bike upstate with me, where the terrain is absolutely brutal and challenges the gearing on the little Raleigh. I rolled into the first downhill I found at about 20mph. I went into an aggressive tuck, and was very quickly catapulted to 41mph. My highest gear, about 105 gear inches, was completely useless, and all I could do was tuck and coast. I kept a pace of about 25mph on the flat roads, ducked around the neighboring village and came back up the hill from the another angle. The uphill was just as relentless, with my smallest gear (65ish gear inches) quickly becoming equally useless torture. I made it though, and that ridiculously painful loop should serve nicely as my benchmark course for a while. I hate to say it, but I'm beginning to understand why modern bikes have 7000 gears.
Friday, June 13, 2008
Question to be asked: Do you love ideas--passionately, with your life? Does this thought keep you from sleeping? Do you feel that you are risking your life on it? How many philosophers would retreat!
. . .
Sade: "People decry the passions without thinking that it is their flame that lights the flame of philosophy."
-two excerpts from the notebooks of Albert Camus
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