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20 augustus 2004
Can't Not
I'm sitting here watching a Science Channel show on the human brain. I was hoping it'd be a little more than it is, cover new ground for me, but it's quite basic. So instead, I'm sitting here reviewing the day, reviewing the last two weeks away from home. It's been a spectacular experience, in breadth and depth, emotion and reason, history and the now.
Sam and I, and (brother) Sam and (his wife) Karen have had a few opportunities to just hang out. And a magnificent and unexpected thing happens each time: stories. I might go so far as to say that it's the primary connective tissue among us all.
I'm surprised at myself that it took me 40 years to notice that our family excels at story-telling. Stories about each other, about ourselves, about events, experiences.
[Eerily, the human brain program on the Science Channel just switched over to a piece about using story-construction as a methodology for enhancing memorization problems.]
We learn more about one another through our stories, tell one another about ourselves with stories. We remind, we reinforce, we correct one another's perceptions. More experiences become common through knowing, hearing. More experiences stay afloat in our own minds by telling.
Karens' mom is a superb artist with a splendid knack for color. Now, from age 7 to age 15 I attended an art school. It was a weekly thing, 2 hours a session after school. I learned many things from Mary Hughes, the teacher. I learned much about color theory, about the combinatorics of the palette, about shape, about interaction of elements. In other words: visual story.
One of Karen's stories tonight was about her mother, about art galleries in Jim Thorpe, PA. I learned a few things about her mother, by direct statement and by inference when she described her mother's behavior when in the presence of other artists. I learned about some of her mother's teaching techniques for young artists.
"Yes, but ____ _____ is about marketing. She markets herself," Karen says. "My mother does art because....well, because she just can't not do it."
Frank Herbert once wrote: "What do you despise? By this are you truly known."
I'm not so sure anymore. It's a useful perspective to try on, to wear for a while just to get a glimpse around the corner or behind that vertex, but it's no end-all to knowing yourself.
Another perhaps even more useful metric is the Can't Not.
That is to say, what activities do you do simply because you can't not do them? Which activities go beyond simple enlightenment or elective satiation and are as compulsory to your own life as breathing and eating and sleeping?
For me, in the last 10 years, the Can't Not is writing. This blog is just one more outlet for the Can't Not; fiction is another; private chronicling is yet another.
What is your Can't Not? I'd love to hear your stories.
Posted by jeff at 10:51 pm | Comments (0) | TrackBack
19 augustus 2004
New York, New Yorker
It was Monday morning when Sam and I met up with Michael for lunch. He's now a New Yorker and, more to the point, a former San Franciscan. For all the sniping and snarkiness in the world (and yeah, I've been dragged down into contributing to that), there are sublime moments. There are deserving goodnesses instead of just the deserved punishments.
Our trip to New York was a deserved good time. I'm going to gush about Bill & Edgar, about Jennie, about Byrne, and about all of New York City until friends slap me for it. I'll probably deserve that, too.Michael's deserved good fortune is more palpable, more concrete. He's settling into an optimal situation with living space, location, school, friends, everything....I swear you can hear the 'snick!' as even each little thing falls into place for him. It's a terrific thing to see, a comforting thing to witness that sometimes the good stuff manifests for good, hardworking, talented people.
Sam and I didn't have our camera with us when Michael gave us a tour of his new place, new neighborhood and Columbia's campus, but I did have my phone...the above pics are from the main quad at Columbia University.
All of this, coupled with enriching and enjoyable times with Sam's family, with Bill & Edgar, and with my family, means we'll be back East a lot more often. My existence in San Francisco will become a bit less insular, in turn making it that much better overall.
Posted by jeff at 07:43 pm | Comments (0) | TrackBack
18 augustus 2004
A Policy Change
In the interest of full disclosure, not because I have to according to the letter of the law (because it's my blog, after all), but rather because I choose to, according to the spirit of the laws of good will, I have deleted several comments made by the soi-disant Gordon the Magnificent. His comments were nasty and utterly off topic and were posted against entries that were about nothing but my own good fortune in friendships. These were my only criteria for deletion.
In the political posts I have made, all of his comments remain intact and unchanged from their original content. I leave them there because to do otherwise would close a forum that, however feckless it has become due to ad hominem and other attacks, should remain open. I leave them intact, and that's better than the posters deserve, better than they would do for me, better than they have done for me in their own forums.
I have no desire for this to be the first step in the same kind of race conditions that are leading us all towards oligarchy in this country. I desire only to continue posting my thoughts and my ideas without being bogged down by a mob.
Perhaps very soon I can abandon even this small but dangerous precedent and go back to welcoming all comers for all reasons. Perhaps good will may prevail in the end.
Until then, I hope you all understand.
Posted by jeff at 09:32 pm | Comments (0) | TrackBack
17 augustus 2004
My New Baby!
Before leaving Manhattan today, Sam and I, my mom and her cousin visited the Apple Store SoHo. We'd been there the day before, Sam and I, to buy a housewarming gift, and I saw this bit of shiny-shiny. It's like a ray gun; it's a 3.2 megapixel digital still camera, along with a digital video recorder that has an MPEG-4 compressor in hardware. It also comes with a 512MB SD card, which holds approx 30 minutes of video, or about a bazillion still pics.
The photos it takes aren't nearly as beautiful as those from my Canon Powershot G2, the video isn't quite DV-quality, but the quality is plenty for taking snaps and for shooting video clips. And it fits in my pocket, something neither the G2 nor our DV cam does.
Of course, Mac OS X sees the camera and starts up iPhoto, ready to import the still images. The camera also shows up on the desktop as a mounted volume, where I can drag the MPEG-4 video off of it into my Movies folder.
I am.......the God of Gadgets.
Posted by jeff at 11:18 pm | Comments (0) | TrackBack
16 augustus 2004
Jennie, Jennie
I have a total crush on Jennie. Tonight, Sam and I, and Bill and Edgar, met up with Michael and Jennie for dinner at Empire Szechuan. I'd never met Jennie before, and when I saw her standing across Broadway with Michael, I started smiling. When she saw us, she started smiling. I got all giggly like a little girl and ended up hopping across Broadway. I hugged her; she kissed my cheek. I swooned; she smiled again.
After dinner, we tried to find a real coffeehouse to go to, but only found a Starbucks. When we got to it, it was full..nowhere to sit and have a chat. "There's another one!" Jennie called out, and sure enough, 2 more blocks down was Yet Another Starbucks. Thank God that each Starbucks in the Universe has clear line-of-sight with at least one other Starbucks. You just know that one day they're going to throw a giant red switch and activate a network that turns us all into frappuchino-craving zombies. Ut-oh.
Crashiepoo met up with us after we'd gotten our venti grande's (with whip!) At times it felt like we'd all been friends since god was a boy (you know, before he became a transsubstantisexual). Man, I love that.
I've loved this entire trip to NYC. We've been staying on the Upper Westside, with Bill & Edgar. I've written about them before, always in the glowingest terms possible. They used to be my next door neighbors back home in San Francisco. I used to be so...used to...having them around. I love them both so much. I miss them, have missed them, am going to miss them when we leave for Northeastern Pennsylvania (Shavertown, PA, to be exact) in the morning.
Just being around Bill & Edgar again had predisposed me to enjoy everything about New York. But Rich Maxwell (the one that originally dubbed me "Peaches") was also in town with our friend Scott and that made things that much more comfortable. Then we ran into a co-worker of mine in a total coincidence at the end of Christopher Street. San Francisco has completely inured me to being shocked at such events. Serendipity rules.
We also saw our neighbor (well, about 4 blocks away) Bob on Columbus Circle when Sam and Michael and I were headed to lunch earlier today. The world gets smaller and smaller all the time. Awesome.
The only profoundly sad thing (selfishly) for me in this whole trip is saying goodbye to Michael. We've only known each other for about a year, but time doesn't really figure into friendship. There are people I can know for decades and never refer to as 'friend', and most of my friendships have started with that instant recognition of something special between us.
All camp aside, that's what happened with Mr. Trinity tonight. The world may be getting smaller, but moments like these remind me that 3500 miles is still too far away.
Posted by jeff at 09:58 pm | Comments (0) | TrackBack
15 augustus 2004
Crash
Today we finally met Crash. GodDAMN what a terrific guy. As Sam says, "He's just good people." He's one of the great things that NYC has that San Francisco, unfortunately, does not.
Thanks for spending the day with us, Crashiepoo.
Posted by jeff at 09:11 pm | Comments (0) | TrackBack