bioluminescence

almost glory

2012-01-28T11:24:00.017-05:00

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the sun is in my eyes

my down coat is silly

and fabric vestibules unnecessary

the park is a mellow brown-grey

the pond is almost frozen

mallards swim at its still liquid edges

i am not suffocated by the night

or by my three scarf sandwich

the end of my nose is almost warm

and i am enjoying this month

in all of its almost glory.

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encircle

2012-01-21T20:06:00.015-05:00

This is my painting

or maybe it’s a collage.

It was painted in September.

I think of it as a floating world.

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36" x 48"

acrylic and pages from an old botany book, on wood

click here for additional details.

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2012 you’re alright

2012-01-03T23:17:00.004-05:00

So many good things happened today: new beginnings, opportunities out of the blue, in the rare zone of peaceful focus during my work, finally hearing back after months of waiting, laughing at a joke I made in the wee hours of the morning which I forgot and then remembered later in the day to intense merriment and...most of all, he was here when I came home and he was cooking a creative and delicious meal. He also did the dishes. The only consistent reminder that I was not in a dream was the fact that I had slight gas all day.

New Things

2011-12-30T15:57:00.018-05:00

A new blog header and a few links for your lazy winter web-browsing. May your new year be filled with peace and wonder and goodness.

A coffee addict’s guide to the world- note to self: bookmark it so you don’t get a headache on your trip to Turkey or Argentina. P.S. I have had the civet coffee (see Indonesia), and it tastes like poop.

We got a big kick out of this baked potato bean bag chair and the pizza sleeping bag.

A beautifully shot film about Ray, a man who dedicated his life to diving “for gold and mermaids”.

Thinking about reading Then Again and Blue Nights.

Let it Be Beautiful: a fab little project by Elizabeth Barker and Laura Jane Faulds. Over the course of nine volumes, Liz and LJ will rewrite every Beatles song (there are 300!) as a story or an essay. via miss moss.

Hope to go to a few of these restaurants in the new year.

I wish this was the case.

rune guneriussen- magical realism and more.

Tomboy Style- check out the piece about whisk(e)y drinking.

And speaking of big Ice cubes... Ice Cube celebrates The Eames-a charming tribute video.

770 Behind The Line- its the Jcrew tumblr, a few interesting things beyond pure retail.

I loved this Paris Review post about a dress.

The story of that New Year’s Eve song that we know so well but, at the same time, don’t really.

The Shop

2011-12-23T01:12:00.001-05:00

I wrote this post in 2006, Joe had his last day at the shop today.

I feel lucky to be marrying someone who loves their job. Joe has worked at “the shop” building a certifiable stairway to paradise for over 5 years now. I have to keep reminding myself of this to quell my anger and sadness when he works. He works a lot and seems to be on call like a physician, but I know he enjoys mostly every minute of it. When I visit his work place I am reminded of the energy it holds and why Creative Engineering is like a drug addiction, not physically good for you, everyone is telling you to stop, but in his mind and devoted heart, it makes him glow with life.

When Joe talks about his work to others, his eyes shine as he churns out more exacting detail than even the most fastidious client would ever care to hear. People nod, but I know he has lost them in the 45 degree angle, and all thats left for them to focus on is his refulgent enthusiasm that they are desperately hoping is contagious.

In the shop testosterone fuels a smattering of suspicion and mistrust, but blaring classic rock, clouds of sawdust and a childlike anticipation of lunchtime unites them. A reluctant camaraderie embraces its members who are striving young men that enter through a revolving door from virtually all walks of life. Sometimes they are looking for the shop to save them, from themselves and from the uncertainty that life has dealt them.

It is 10000 square feet of colors, textures, woods, metals, glue, nails, whining power tools, sweat, calluses and foolish stubborn dedication to a cause they pretend to have little respect for in the end.

Decisions have to be made that disappear into the complete piece. How do we match this color, how do we achieve this texture or shape?

And while it is not always comforting to think of engineering getting too creative, as the name suggests, they do good solid proud work at the shop. Most of their work probably goes unnoticed, like most things. But it is in the process of construction where the true ingenuity lies.

Christmastime

2011-12-20T19:21:00.006-05:00

My cross-town bus driver was wearing a santa hat today, but he was stone-faced. I thought it was funny.

It is a great time in New York, its crowded, its touristy, its cliché, everything sparkles, people are foolish, emotional, drunk and uncharactersitically generous.

Happy Holidays my dear blog readers, I adore you.

Also, please read this Christmas excerpt from D.H. Lawrence, via even*cleveland. Its just so damn beautifully written.

Why She Wrote

2011-12-15T21:48:00.002-05:00

From a piece called “Why I Write” by Joan Didion. I read this the other day and I keep thinking about it. I am all butter and Greyhound buses too.

I am not in the least an intellectual, which is not to say that when I hear the word "intellectual" I reach for my gun, but only to say that I do not think in abstracts. During the years when I was an undergraduate at Berkeley, I tried, with a kind of hopeless late-adolescent energy, to buy some temporary visa into the world of ideas, to forge for myself a mind that could deal with abstract.

In short I tried to think. I failed. My attention veered inexorably back to the specific, to the tangible, to what was generally considered, by everyone I knew then and for that matter have known since, the peripheral. I would try to contemplate the Hegelian dialectic and would find myself concentrating instead on a flowering pear tree outside my window and the particular way the petals fell on my floor. I would try to read linguistic theory and would find myself wondering instead if the lights were on in the bevatron up the hill. When I say that I was wondering if the lights were on in the bevatron you might immediately suspect, if you deal in ideas at all, that I was registering the bevatron as a political symbol, thinking in shorthand about the military-industrial complex and its role in the university community, but you would be wrong. I was only wondering if the lights were on in the bevatron, and how they looked. A physical fact.

I had trouble graduating from Berkeley, not because of this inability to deal with ideas—I was majoring in English, and I could locate the house-and-garden imagery in "The Portrait of a Lady" as well as the next person, "imagery" being by definition the kind of specific that got my attention—but simply because I had neglected to take a course in Milton. For reasons which now sound baroque I needed a degree by the end of that summer, and the English department finally agreed, if I would come down from Sacramento every Friday and talk about the cosmology of "Paradise Lost," to certify me proficient in Milton. I did this. Some Fridays I took the Greyhound bus, other Fridays I caught the Southern Pacific’s City of San Francisco on the last leg of its transcontinental trip. I can no longer tell you whether Milton put the sun or the earth at the center of his universe in "Paradise Lost," the central question of at least one century and a topic about which I wrote 10,000 words that summer, but I can still recall the exact rancidity of the butter in the City of San Francisco’s dining car, and the way the tinted windows on the Greyhound bus cast the oil refineries around Carquinez Straits into a grayed and obscurely sinister light. In short my attention was always on the periphery, on what I could see and taste and touch, on the butter, and the Greyhound bus. During those years I was traveling on what I knew to be a very shaky passport, forged papers: I knew that I was no legitimate resident in any world of ideas. I knew I couldn’t think. All I knew then was what I couldn’t do. All I knew was what I wasn’t, and it took me some years to discover what I was.

Which was a writer.

Something

2011-11-30T10:31:00.017-05:00

Yesterday was the 10th anniversary of George Harrison’s death. In memoriam I watched Martin Scorsese’s documentary about George called “Living in the Material World” and I highly recommend it. There was some spectacular and intimate footage of the Beatles and then of just George. I am sometimes decidedly John-loving, because I admired his raw talent and bombast... but after watching this, its really George who seemed like such a beautiful, loving, poetic man.

Musicians always seem to be the truest artists; mixing emotion and technique into something that is undeniably widely appreciated by so many people. I will never get over the fact that the Beatles caused such an absolute sensation. Its amazing how popularity spreads and what cultural elements catch fire sometimes. I imagine if the Beatles had been popular when I was young, I would have been one of those screaming, fainting girls in the audience. I love this lips poster above (via Cup of Jo).

For a clip from the documentary, click here.

and Something (acoustic).

My Martha

2011-11-18T18:04:00.029-05:00

Everything was painted with gold paint; pinecones, leaves, fruits, wreaths, nuts. There were gingerbread mansions with shining sugar window panes, forced flowering branches, wire edged ribbons and a towering impossible croquembouche. Ingredients that were not available within miles of my home. And recipes for things I didn’t even know could be homemade. Well-styled Christmas trees galore, without a tattered sentimental ornament in sight. And cookie morphology that was completely new to me. It was a cornucopia of the unknown.

This was back when Martha’s ideas were out of many peoples league. Fresh hen eggs, copper cooking pots that would not fit in most kitchens, boxwood lined New England walkways twinkling with white lights. It was a level of over-the-top home-maker perfection that disgusted many ordinary people. But not me. I was in 8th grade and I was downright dazzled. I took Martha Stewart’s Christmas book to bed with me night after night. The photography was glorious and it made me want to make everything.

I carried my brother’s black and serious-looking glue gun up to our attic and turned the space into a freezing cold workshop with one very dedicated and irrational elf. I bought styrofoam spheres, collected tiny pinecones from our hemlock tree, shamelessly stole from dishes of mixed nuts. And I gilded and glued until my fingers burned a million times over. I hung flowers to dry from every rafter. The silica gel eluded me. I only knew it from the small forbidden desiccant packets in new shoe boxes. Where could I get cups of it? This was supposed to be used to dry flowers without having to hang them so they kept their shape. All my hydrangeas and lilacs would dry hanging on the rafters and when you flipped them over they were no longer an orb, but more of a frozen upward wilt.

I tried to make the croquembouche, which is essentially a tower of creme puffs all held together by the magic of spun sugar. To do this, you were supposed to quickly drip molten sugar between two broom handles and when it hardened, swaddle the pastry in this airy nest. piece. of. cake. I made a complete mess trying this and the tower ended up as a pile, but it tasted gooey and sweet. My gingerbread mansion was more of a modest starter gingerbread home, I never did get enough poppy seeds for the poppy seed roll (although I wondered about asking the guys at the bagel shop). I did, however make very successful popcorn balls and homemade marshmallows and I twisted branches into several wreaths. So, in pursuit of glittering excellence I gave out many half-baked sentimental kid-versions of Martha’s crafts and cookies for Christmas that year. Once my penny wrapping business (called Pennies from Heaven) went under I had to keep busy somehow and this was the dawn of a new crafty industriousness.

Which brings me to my adult point. Last week my husband took me to see the Martha Stewart Show for my Birthday. And I found myself feeling ashamed that I like all of these things. I couldn’t tell my serious professional colleagues that I like Martha Stewart or that sometimes I walk the asiles of Michael’s crafts just to relax. A liberated woman does not bake barrels of cookies or take pleasure in arranging flowers. Or does she? Martha brought the average quotidien life a new kind of order and quality and beauty. Now she has lines of dishware, craft materials and tools. She is no different than an industrial designer or a chef or a horticulturist, its just that she is all of these things. And some people don’t like that. But I do.

It reminds me of this quote {When you have only two pennies left in the world, buy a loaf of bread with one, and a lily with the other.} ~Chinese Proverb

Eating Sand

2011-11-08T18:50:00.010-05:00

Sometimes when I am on the beach I end up eating sand. This is one of the reasons why I can never truly, fully enjoy the airy blue universal beacon of relaxation that is the beach. Sand makes its way into everything, even warm salami sandwiches. Anyway, I once expressed this sentiment to an acquaintance who snidely remarked that I must be a barrel of fun on vacation. That acquaintance was right. I am no fun on vacation.

In recent years, I have forgotten how to relax on trips. I am not sure I ever knew. I knew leisure as a younger person the same way a cat knows it. It doesn’t know anything else. Going away on vacation almost always causes me stress these days. I dislike being a tourist. The not knowing. The being had. The feeling like a rube. The pressure to “see things” and be “wowed” by them tempered by the desire to do disgusting amounts of nothing.

Tell me, what’s your vacation strategy? Do you plan every minute? Do you research a lot, or do you just head straight out chasing the horizon?

Synchronous Fireflies!

2011-11-07T22:31:00.002-05:00

Male fireflies lighting in unison in Malaysia. Woah.

Dr. Little Miss Queen of Darkness

2011-10-31T23:16:00.019-04:00

Something made me think of this old post I wrote in January 2009, so I am reposting it. Maybe every time I re-post it I will get a tiny bit closer to being over all of my educational-emo baggage. I do think this is one of the reasons why I like to teach, because I know so intimately what its like to hate school and I want to change that experience for others.

Since I am experimenting with being a scientist lately, I feel like I am on the verge of becoming square. Some people think that because I am getting my PhD that I must be a good student. But I am really not, and I never was. I burned my report card in our driveway once, I remember my heart sinking in fear and sadness when I saw the flame eat up my mediocrity. And I remember feeling even worse when the report card was a yellowy ashen pile, but I still felt like a loser. And another year I meticlously cut out all the C’s, it created a swiss-cheese effect. I missed school many times—especially in 4th grade—due to “sickness”, that was brought on by I-didnt-do-my-homework anxiety. And then of course there was the time I climbed the Japanese maple tree in our front yard to escape having to get on the school bus to kindergarden. I can still picture my mom and the bus driver standing at the base of the tree looking up at me and yelling. Incidentally, my escape was a total success. I didnt go to school that day and I got out of playing the deeply dreaded duck-duck-goose.

Highschool was just a mess, over-fucking-flowing with bad feelings about school. Kicked out of honors freshman year, never to live it down to this damn day. Harassing the nun who taught us French. Every time she turned her back to write on the board-we moved our desks up just a bit-every-time-she-turned-around until we were right up on her and she was freaking out. I never really cheated or did drugs or anything like that, but I acted like I was bad-ass and pissed off enough to do so. I think I drew on my sneakers once. I identified with Holden Caulfield, even though I probably never really finished reading the book.

And then of course there was Art School...

And now, by some strange fluke of adult-onset academic goodness, I am back in school. And I am feeling a bit like a Pollyanna, which I am not. I feel like I should get a tattoo or start smoking and wearing darker eyeliner and maybe become a self-loathing alcoholic. I think my voice should be raspier to reflect some kind of worldliness and experience in badness. I realized the other day that I still love the people who are super-smart, but who dont conform to what school has to give and who—because they have some kind of advanced crazy mind—are dark and brooding and screwed up. I still love people who are the most clever in a conversation but who got horrible grades. I like the tragedy of it and I love that song Little Miss Queen of Darkness because I imagine that they are talking about me, but I guess it will be Dr. Little Miss Queen of Darkness soon.

2011-10-09T21:13:00.022-04:00

My Great-Aunt died today. Below is a story that I once wrote about her, so I am reposting it. The story, called Cross to Wear, is sad but she lived a good life. Her name was Marie and she was from Algeria. She came to live in the United States when she was 39. We called her “Tata Marie”.“Tata” was a term of endearment derived from the word aunt in French, which is “Tante”. When I first knew her, she lived with my other great Aunt, her sister Rosette, in an apartment above my Grandmother. Tata Marie and Tata Rosette shuffled around in well-worn pink or blue slippers and flowered house-coats. They paid special attention to their hair; its color and the configuration of curls. They only cooked the freshest fish, only ate two cookies in one sitting, erroneously referred to the store P.C. Richard as “Richardsons”, watched soap operas and had pristine, ornate couches, chairs and lamps around the apartment. They had Monet’s “Rouen Cathedral, The Portal, Grey Weather” hanging in the living room. Tata Marie’s personality could be prickly at times. And I remember her occasionally getting into riotous, cacophonous quarrels with my Grandmother, which were followed by days of uncompromising silence from both parties. Tata Marie and Tata Rosette were always old to me, even in pictures when they were young, they still looked old. Marie would often reminisce about her late husband, her white poodle named Mimich and the breathtaking landscape of Algiers. She would have turned 100 years old this coming February.

Cross to Wear

He wore the cross around his neck for 4 years in WWII. When he died, several years after the war, she wanted him to be buried with it. The funeral home did not allow anyone to be buried with jewelry on, so she took the gold cross that hung around her husband’s neck and she put in on. She wore it proudly and sorrowfully for over 40 years.

Gold and gleaming and on a delicate chain, it always hung outside her shirt. It reminded her of him. He was a milliner and an Italian. And according to my Great-Aunt he was equally courageous and charismatic. She believed that his cross shielded her from harm.

My Great-Aunt broke her hip the other day and was rushed to the hospital and then subsequently shuffled from room to room and stripped of her clothes. She speaks with a charming French accent but her personality can be virulent. She is 96. I went to see her the other day in the hospital and she is in some pain physically, but not as much pain as she seems to be emotionally. Tears welled up in her already watery old gray eyes. The hospital staff lost her cross. It is nowhere.

This made me awfully sad. Now there is a blemish on the great orb of old romanticism that encircles our blue earth.

2011-09-29T01:19:00.000-04:00

“You must not know too much or be too precise or scientific about birds and trees and flowers and watercraft; a certain free-margin, and even vagueness—ignorance, credulity—helps your enjoyment of these things.”

~ Henry David Thoreau

Fall Feel-Good

2011-09-22T16:37:00.005-04:00

Happy Autumn Everyone. The first official day is tomorrow. I wish you baskets of apples, mellow mornings, cozy sweaters, candlelight, sweeping acres of colorful leaves and butternut squash everything.

Image via A Cup of Joe

Rockaway Roundup

2011-08-30T19:09:00.020-04:00

Rockaway Beach, Queens—the little piece of land just beyond Jamacia Bay—has gotten so much new attention in the past few years. On Saturday, we collectively held our breath as hurricane Irene approached this fragile place. I’ve heard stories of past Rockaway hurricanes, and how the ocean would greet the bay with disregard for the unsuspecting sandy-land between.

I am acutely aware of the ways that people view and interact with this city beach because my parents met at Rockaway Beach. For them, summer was synonymous with this place. For me, I just have a peculiar case of nostalgia for a place I never even knew. Rockaway has changed since my parents were out there, but what’s interesting is, it’s changing again. I like to think of it as a re-birth of cool.

Here is a roundup of some links to Rockaway’s past and present:

My Rockaway

Hurricane Donna Hits the Rockaways, 1960

Rockaway Tenacity

Hurricane Irene’s Aftermath

Rockaway Taco

Catch the A train ~~~~ and ~a~~wave~~~

Inside a Reimagined Beach Bungalow

Rockaway in the NY Times Fashion & Style Section

Rockaway Photo Booth from The New Yorker

Late Summer Rockaway Guide from Time Out NY

and of course, The Ramones, 1977

Dear Apartment 4B

2011-08-16T19:22:00.019-04:00

I started to write a blog post a few days ago. It began:

Dear Apartment 4B,

It breaks my heart a little to admit this, but I am just going to come out and say it: It’s over. Its been a terrific 7 years. But its time for us to move. I will miss your brick face, your pre-war charm...

but then I couldn’t finish writing, because it made me unbearably sad. We have been talking a lot lately about moving. There are many logistic elements to consider: location, price, space, commute, community, restaurants nearby, access to cultural establishments, parks, food-sellers etc.

But there is something else that I have to consider. My heart absolutely aches when I think about leaving this place. We have a veritable encyclopedia of wonderful memories here: parties, Thanksgivings, Dominican roasted chickens, building things, painting that, hanging Christmas lights, drinking wine in the evening and coffee in the morning, and mostly, relaxing together in our little railroaded place of peace in the wild city. Joe has built almost every piece of furniture that we own. Each drawer, countertop, bookshelf and cabinet fit perfectly in these imperfect swervy old walls. This is where we grew together, our lives intertwining more and more as we sat at the kitchen table looking out at the most beautiful Manhattan Mini-Storage sign we had ever laid eyes on.

I know so many amazing people who love to travel. Philosophically, I love to travel too. But in actuality, I don’t. I truly believe that wanderlust versus home-loving is partly biologically based. So, even though I think daily of faraway lands, physically, I don’t desire them. This makes me terribly unworldly, I know. I believe that it is this same tendency that makes it hard for me to move to another home.

If you have ever been at our apartment during the day time, you may have noticed the light. The light that comes into our windows looks like atmospheric poetry pouring onto every surface it glimmers onto. It’s an old apartment building, it’s pre-pre war, it was probably built in the late 1800’s or so. There are memories of memories here. The idea that generations of lives have lived here makes the space all the more deep and complex and alluring.

People my age hardly ever stay in a New York apartment as long as I have. They skip from crappy place to slightly less-crappy place, year after every few years. But I have stayed here, made roots, decorated with every sentimental nick-nack from our lives and created a rich and layered story of us that is tremendously dear to me.

My identity is so twirled up into this apartment and in Manhattan...but really I can probably be me, anywhere. Lately, I have been looking through craigslist and imagining the possibilites. When I do this, I feel powerful and spontaneous and normal. But deep down, I just want to wake up to Saint John the Divine out our bedroom window and the uncharacteristically magnificent urban sunrise and I don’t want to go, anywhere.

A Box for all Pizzas

2011-07-22T22:04:00.019-04:00

I am fascinated with watching people make pizza. It’s something we take for granted because it is so ubiquitous in New York, but so are many talented pizza-makers. Seriously? tossing the dough up in the air and cradling its fall with your fists? The same fists that can punch holes in things. That is not easy. But it happens all the time, many times, at the same time, all over the city. Simultaneous pizza making is part of the daily urban hum. How many potential pizzas take a little spin in the air at the very same moment each day? I wonder.

Joe is building shallow wooden boxes for a guy who owns a pizza place. The guy’s name is, not surprisingly, Sal. The boxes will be a place for the dough to sit quietly and rise. I like this project. These boxes will bear hundreds of expanding doughy miracles, to be baked, shared and crunched.

Happy Summer Everyone.

2011-07-16T19:41:00.009-04:00

via even cleveland

2011-06-11T12:31:00.004-04:00

The Photography of Barry Underwood.

“It is better to light one small candle than to curse the darkness.” —Eleanor Roosevelt

The Traffic Island Chronicles

2011-06-07T20:03:00.024-04:00

There is an island that I spend a lot of time on. It’s strange. I have waited on this island for many minutes. I should probably not spend as much time there as I do.

I was on the island again the other day, sitting on a bench, staring at the ginkgo tree and smelling the simultaneously comforting and revolting hamburger exhaust from a nearby restaurant. This island attracts people who are somewhere between somewhere-to-be and nowhere-to-go. No one is waiting for them, anywhere.

Two men sat on the bench perpendicular to me. They were sleeping as the sun beat down on them. They had on the same pair of black boots and I wondered if they knew. Or if they knew each other. Then, a woman came and sat next to me and ate one of those huge homemade rice crispy treats that they sell in delis, but that no one ever purchases. She was new to the island. Just as I thought about how my island faithfully attracts transitional characters, misfits, outcasts and odd birds, a pigeon walked by with a deformed or badly injured foot.

On my island you will find two large black metal trash cans, three benches, five medium sized trees, two small trees and two shrubs in planters. Most of the trees are sycamores, the type that have the bark peeling off so it’s variegated, like camouflage. Each tree sits in a bed of wood shavings, which is surrounded by concrete. The ginkgo tree across from the island lights up a charasmatic green against the deep red brick facade. The facade belongs to an old factory building, the kind with crumbled character that will be missed and then forgotten when the city tears it down and puts a high-rise in its place. Most of the surrounding buildings are low now, so I can see clear to the 59th street bridge. And I can see sky.

I sit on this island and wait for Joe to finish work, many times he takes too long and I grow restless with a kind of urban island fever. Many times I leave the island before Joe arrives and I wait somewhere else.

Outburst Opportunities

2011-05-22T12:40:00.002-04:00

Opposition often occurs by obsessively observing objects,

old ways obstruct open minds

other opinions often offend orthodox oracles.

Ongoing offensive obstinate overblown omnipotence overwhelms ordinary orderly options.

On the other hand, oppression of non-objective object observations only omits obvious

inevitable ongoing outburst opportunities.

When I was in art school I wrote a little book of poems and illustrated it with typography. It was full of alliteration. Each page featured a different letter. The first spread was all words that began with the letter {W}, the second page {O}, the third {R}, fourth {D}, fifth {P}, sixth {L}, then {A} and {Y}. It spelled out {WORDPLAY}, which is all it was. Here is the second installment, its about looking at art.

A Little Alliteration: W

2011-05-19T23:33:00.005-04:00

What does your mind wonder when

you witness words working their way?

Whether it woe or whimsy,

weaving a web of wisdom

willfully wrapping, wrapping,

wrapping your weak will into a womb

until you worship what you see written

without so much as a wince.

Will you wonder when words work their witchcraft,

or will you wane and whimper beneath the

wise world of words that whip you with their

wit.

On the Street

2011-03-22T23:00:00.025-04:00

Bill Cunningham is a street photographer. He rides a bicycle, wears a blue jacket and takes pictures of people on the street. Other people’s clothing are his absolute raison d’etre. He lives a life of extreme asceticism. Never cooks. Hardly eats. Goes to church on Sunday. Doesn’t particularly care for money. Has few personal items and even fewer personal friends. He attends all the fanciest parties in New York. But he doesn’t party, not one bit. He works instead. Fastidiously chronicling what people wear through his pictures. He has devoted his entirety to searching for beauty. Bill is a fashion monk.

His photo page in the Times is a veritable quilt of the town’s quirk. He shoots pictures of people who are uniquely dressed and then finds other people who are wearing something similar. He follows patterns of color, texture, cut and curiosity. At it since the ‘60’s, Bill captures that quality of New York that makes ordinary people instantly boring. Older ladies in large black rimmed round glasses, couches turned into suits, hats, astonishing egos, pelts, fuzz, feathers, impossible heels. Its magical realism, but its real.

We saw a documentary about his life tonight, its called “Bill Cunningham’s New York”. It was seriously heartwarming and inspiring. It made me wish more people were like Bill.

But before we saw the film, Joe saw him. A few months ago. On the street. Riding his bicycle. Joe approached him and asked him for a picture for his wife, who is me. And so, Bill let Joe take a video of him. You can hear the smiles that ensued between my darling and the city’s humble fashion darling, Bill.

Form Follows Gumption

2011-03-14T19:56:00.023-04:00

Writing is deeply personal, even when its not. Lately, I have been trying to write a scientific research proposal. The goal is to convey that my intended project is downright wonderful, without actually saying that. I am learning to hate this genre of writing, and not unrelated to that, I am terrible at it. With each turn of objective-sounding phrase, feelings of inadequacy bloom inside of me.

When I was 14, my English teacher told me that my writing, in a word, sucked. From that, I will never recover. Especially since she repeatedly told me that I looked like Juliet in Franco Zeffirelli’s 1968 film adaptation of Romeo and Juliet. And although it wasn’t true, I was flattered. Then she gave me a “D” on my Romeo and Juliet paper. Partly, it was because I didn’t follow the rules. I learned that physical beauty is irrelevant to writing, a fact for which I am increasingly thankful for as I age. But I also learned that I didn’t even know the formal rules of writing.

Then, I was told to stay after class one day in an art history course I took in college. It was a large lecture (in a room where Pratt let the stray cats roam free, so my attention to the course material was periodically interrupted by the onset of allergy anxiety as these no-doubt dirty felines took a haughty seat beside me) and I had never had a face-to-face conversation with the professor before. She told me that my paper, on the topic of Arshile Gorky, was exceptional. I was glowing with abstract expressionistic pride. I just stood in front of the painting for hours and I wrote down exactly what I felt. There were no rules and I was obeying all of them.

So which is it, are there basic tenets to all good writing, or do expectations and genere’s toy with form enough to allow a grammatical ignoramus to excel in one realm and fail in another?

Well, no matter how utterly inadmissible it is that I dont know these rigid rules of writing, I dont really care about them. I just want to write. And I want to write clearly and without pretense. I am not sure this is possible in the case of a grant proposal and I know its not possible in the case of Shakespeare. But I think it boils down to bullshit versus non-bullshit. If you believe what you are writing, then its not bullshit, and you can be frank to the point of blinding clarity. But, to write what you truly believe—whether its on Verona or vermilion—is a tremendous risk, because there is a chance that someone might read it, just as you have, this.

Jacobus Hendrik Pierneef

2011-02-15T20:01:00.009-05:00

I just discovered the work of Jacobus Hendrik Pierneef.

A South African landscape artist who worked in the 1920’s and 30’s.

I am in love with these tranquil sweeping scenes.

(via the always resourceful blog, miss moss), click here for more images.

settling on snow

2011-02-05T13:19:00.014-05:00

Last night the piles of snow in New York turned to icy hard shiny rocks. It was like being on the moon, except that I imagine the moon kinder and with fewer cars.

Today, its gray and misty. It’s a good day to take photographs, the lighting is right. The whole town is cloaked in a soft wintery palette, with persistent patches of graying snow.

There is an obese snow-person on 106th street, with a slice of eggplant as a mouth and pine needles as hair/ears. I know he/she will be here until April.

Some mounds of snow have been shoveled, iced and then lightly snowed on again. They look like giant dirty crumb cakes lying at the curb.

A few parked cars have not been touched since the first storm. They look ridiculous.

The other day I walked through the park and the sun was beaming. The color in the snow shadows was that indescribable luminous lavender/blue that does not exist in any other natural place.

Kråazy

2011-01-24T12:23:00.012-05:00

daydreams of contentment

fueled by blonde plywood

and meatballs.

my systematic heart soars

on brightly colored

matte plastic moulded wings.

oh to think!

it will all be organized

and as efficient as a pin.

our home will

exude European ease

everything in its place

saving Scandinavian space.

marching through the labyrinth

with the masses

digression after digression

bins of that and this

useful nicks paired

with their nacks.

couples sitting

in fake kitchens

on imaginary couches

with lists

and tiny pencils

some with raised brows

all with raised hopes.

I spy an item

that dreams couldn’t

even design.

and I am suddenly stricken

with a longing for objects

on the glorious side

of ordinary.

cabinets, shelves, tables,

and table-cabinets

and cabinet-shelves

with every last accessory

sold maddeningly separately

not available in stores you say?

did I take it off display?

no one knows where

I even found it

least of all me.

I emerge slightly deflated

from an inflation I never

even wanted.

I am bewildered

and without a bag.

and with

a cluster of new manufactured

items in my world.

and a modern pain

for the bright ideas that lit

my meandering way

through that store

and then vanished because

they were on back-order.

Small Town Winter

2010-12-28T03:16:00.085-05:00

Harry said that it’s more dangerous in the country than it is in the city. I had never heard that before, but I have spent years ruminating about it and finding ways to agree.

I have lived in New York City for 11 years now and in New York State my whole life. I grew up in southern Westchester, just a stone’s throw north of the Bronx. My family did not live in a small town, it was technically a little city encircled by suburbs. And both of my parents were New York City kids, which affected how we lived our suburban life: in suspicion of pretty much everyone and their squirrels. My parents spent many years cultivating a well-worn indifference to the majority of our neighbors. So, I never experienced the suffocation and acute yearning caused by growing up in a true one-horse town. It was that one lost year I spent in upstate New York that I felt the first miserable tickle of these creepy crawly town-averse tendencies. This Christmas we went to an Inn in New Hampshire. We spent two days there. It snowed and it was really very traditionally lovely, but that awful sensation welled up again:

It began with coffee that has that halo of watery weakness along the top rim, then came the ugly New England sweaters, turtle-necks, beer guts and typical pleasantries. It all makes me irrationally sick. Even two days of the same chubby judgemental Innkeeper knowing when I swish open and closed the Inn door irritates the shit out of me. Is it too much to ask that you ignore me? I don’t like it that someone is cleaning our room who is probably a cousin of the owner, who now knows we didn’t make the bed or that we have a bottle of Drambuie and an expensive camera in our room. I imagine the townspeople looking me up and down because my coat and boots are different—then I think that I must be going crazy—and then I see them do it.

I want a label for my disorder so I can officially hide behind it. Manhattanitis is too snobby, and I admit that what I have is a neurosis and not a sophistication. Its more like urban itch or a creeping crawling or a shortness of breath. I can really only stay one night at an adorable Inn. And Bed and Breakfast’s are completely out due to the high level of intimacy with chatty strangers at breakfast.

I—like Groucho and then like Woody—have a problem being part of any club that would have me as a member. I am not a joiner. This city is the only place that I can gracefully belong by not belonging. Sure its nice to live near Central Park and Carnegie Hall, but its the gritty anonymity that I need. I need my ipod and my coat and to walk a million blocks all bundled up and unavailable while being continually bombarded by all that is magnificent and horrifying in the world.

I am sure part of my discomfort comes from just being away from the comforts of a home anywhere, which is provincial and high-maintenance and all the things I try hard to resist, but its also true. I admit, I am philopatric, or “home-loving” in Greek.

Now, in spite of my discomfort, if you can believe it, we did actually have fun. We went out in the blizzard and cross country skied in the forest, which was dramatic and beautiful and my left toe turned lavender. But I will tell you about that another time.

Incidentally, since Harry was elderly, I think what he meant was that if you had a sudden health emergency in the country that it would take ages for someone to reach you. But I like to think that Harry also meant that the country could be a danger to that kooky urban freedom.

The Great Pumpkin Pie

2010-11-28T21:14:00.042-05:00

Forget turkey. Pumpkin pie is what defines the Thanksgiving table. Its orange ochre silkiness and notes of nutmeg evoke an anthem of autumnal comfort.

This year, for 9 minutes, we stopped to watch the parade balloons inflate. Then, we escaped the tourist-laden streets to have drinks with a friend. After drinks, we went on our pie-seeking way. We headed to the bakery ranked 3rd for the best pumpkin pie in the city. Why 3rd!? Well, numbers 1 and 2 were on the East side, or below 14th St, and the sun was setting fast on Thanksgiving eve. We rushed into the bakery flushed with hasty holiday warmth and anticipation. “We only have the big pies left”, they told us. Our gluttonous minds momentarily fixated on the words big pies, “ We’ll take one!”

On Thanksgiving Thursday, before turkey, and way before any actual conscious giving of thanks, we woke to coffee and a piece of this upper west side tertiary pie. The coffee was, as always, satisfying and delightful. The pie was—to my chagrin—not. Its disappointingly dense body rested in an overly buttery, almost greasy, un-crust. Our mouths considered it, but our hearts didn’t. We mumbled something, blamed ourselves for settling for 3rd, got dressed, and went to my Mother’s for the official celebration.

The meal concluded. And with perfectly cooked turkey behind us, we hunkered down for what we had really come for. My brother had made a pie from scratch, so we left the sub-par pie at home. Now this pie, my brother’s pie, was really something.

It looked as if the filling would spill out all over the table when sliced into, but it didn’t. The first piece I removed stood there on the plate, miraculously contained and regal. It would be a model for all pumpkin pies to come. To be precise, the filling was both pumpkin and yam. And the crust was an expression of ephemeral flakiness. My brother—who I always thought would have made a fine scientist—made the crust with vodka instead of water. The vodka wets the crust mixture at the right time but then evaporates completely when cooking, leaving no trace of vodka flavor, no sugary gluten, only a perfect pie crust in its wake.

With a dollop of lightly-sweetened whipped cream on top, we had what was probably the best, the lightest and most sublime pumpkin pie, ever. As we ate this pie together, we incidentally paused in silence. I know its flavor memory will flirt with our senses for Thanksgivings to come.

Out at the Beach

2010-11-11T18:26:00.029-05:00

This September, we went back, even though some of us had never been there before. The place was Rockaway Beach, NY, the date September 25th and the mood, optimistic.

My parents met each other when they were about 9 years old. My father's parents owned a bungalow on Rockaway beach in Queens, my mother's family rented. Each summer, on Memorial day they packed up the big old American cars and drove from East Harlem, and from Corona, out to the beach. They stayed until Labor day. Almost every single summer was spent out there until the early 70's. By then, all three of my older brothers had been born. My mother and my aunts swam with flowered bathing caps, my dad rowed in peace with only the dog in the boat, they watched jets from Idlewild Airport roar overhead and pranced around with the confidence that comes with having fun.

What happened during those summers at the beach was, I am sure, typical of many middle class New York families during that time. But to me, it has always seemed other-wordly and not only because I wasn't there. You see, my family isn't the most festive bunch. They don't allow themselves to embrace many things. Most activities, events and life decisions are met with, what I would call, extreme trepidation. But not the beach. When they talk about the beach, their eyes shine with something else. Its the most happy and the most sad that they will ever be. I know it. My dad's beach bungalow was burned down by vandals. My eldest brother remembers seeing all the items in the house that had been stored for the winter burned in the middle of the living room, and the fiberglass boat melted. They never went back. It was too painful and time was rough on the old neighborhood.

Until this year. My mom read an article about a woman who was organizing a beach cleanup on Rockaway in an effort to preserve the beach and its unique wildlife. She suggested we all go and help. We sat on our comfy suburban couch and wondered if she was serious. But she was. And we all went. My husband and I took the A train all the way out there, getting a full view of the expanse of beach as the train passed through someone else's memories. My parents and brothers met us out there.

We broke up into two teams. We put on gloves and picked up trash. We recorded what we collected. The purpose of the cleanup is to keep a record of the items dumped on the beach in an effort to correct the litter problem and to monitor its effect on the local environment. My brother (who remembers the melted boat) and I, walked further away from everyone else, cleaning steadily. We were met with a wall of extremely tall reeds and grasses. It was well over our heads. My brother walked straight in. I followed. I worried about ticks as I was repeatedly tickled by what was probably fairly dirty beach grass. We kept walking. I didn't know when we would emerge. But I followed my brother. Suddenly, I looked up to the tops of the grasses to see the largest cluster of monarch butterflies that I had ever seen. They fluttered liberally. It was pretty darn close to something childlike and magical. Below our feet, hoards of hermit crabs rushed around with somewhere important to go.

We eventually did emerge from our beachy-natureland, into a diverse pile of garbage; shoes, candy wrappers, couch foam, styrofoam, car bumpers, soda cans, you name it.

When we were done that day, my dad tried to take us to a restaurant that had been there last time he was there. It was gone. So, we drove further into Queens, all stuffed in the car together, tired and dirty. We eventually sat together and ate, but we didn't talk about what really happened that day. That day, my family made a small portion of peace with the past, and this time, I was lucky enough to be with them, out at the beach.

Click here to link to an article about the coastal cleanup. My parents are pictured in the image with the caption that reads, “At Beach 35 Street, recyclables had to be separated before bagging them", my mom is in the hat holding the garbage bag open, my dad is off to the left holding what looks like the moon in his hand.

less bio, same luminescence

2010-10-01T23:55:00.003-04:00

I just started a new science blog on the nature network. So, I may be taking some of the occasional “bio” out of this blog and reserving this space for more personal anecdotes.

Here is the link.

http://blogs.nature.com/juliaz/2010/10/welcome_to_evolverie.html

Summery

2010-09-05T08:41:00.014-04:00

Summer is wrapping up with a few last gorgeous moments here in New York city. But it wasn’t all roses this summer. It was hot roses. Although, we had a pretty damn good one, took many car trips to visit friends and family, went camping, got out to the beach, Joe saw a shark, I killed a huge cockroach/waterbug in our kitchen with boiling water, celebrated our 3rd wedding anniversary, brunches and coffees with dear friends, I forced Joe to watch Annie Hall, he forced me to watch Inception, our car was broken into, I am going to be an aunt (again), lovely jogs and walks in central park and along the hudson river, we fished, we picnicked, I overslept, we swam, we sweat, we ate chocolate pinkberry. But I cant wait for fall, it really is the best time in New York. And our air conditioner died this morning, it knew. Happy Labor Day Weekend everyone.

Blue Voodoo

2010-07-26T12:26:00.108-04:00

“Its barely blue”, she muttered at me as I walked into the auditorium. She was standing too close and I was startled. I looked down at my own shirt, gave her a contrite a look, and continued walking. This was the first time the principal of my high school had spoken directly to me. I don’t think she knew my name. But she knew my shirt was not blue. It was a grey collared shirt, with only a hint of blue. I was, just barely, in uniform, which left me mostly out of uniform. Also, it was known, that blue was her very favorite color, she wore it every single god-given day.

A year later in my art class we were drawing and painting portraits. I wanted to do a portrait of our dear old wrinkly principal, who everyone seemed to love, but I really didn’t. It was uncharacteristically brown-nosey and gutsy for me to want to do this, but her face was so interesting. Also, at that point, I knew I was good. She would know my name now. I marched down to her office. She sat across from me in a chair, in her almost nuns habit, which was really just a habit of wearing the same color every day. I sketched her face, it seemed young and old at the same time, with tracks of disappointment running every which way across it. I was working quickly and nervously. Then, she moved her head. She was falling asleep in the chair. I didn’t say a thing. Maybe she needed a nap. Of course she needed a nap, poor old lady. I finished my drawing. It looked very much like her. We exchanged pleasantries.

I went upstairs to the art room to turn my drawing into a painting, one that would hang in her office for years to come. I would be famous. Sort of. I decided to paint her portrait in cool blue hues, because those were her favorite and because I had to do my blue contrition. I worked it and reworked it, with colors ranging from out-of-the-tube royal blue to the yellow-grey of a bird feather to soft metallic greens. Something was emerging. Something very strange. I put more paint on, painstakingly doing her eyes so they burned cold with equal intensity to her actual eyes. I stepped back to look at it. She looked very very ill in my painting. What had I done? I had particularly messed up her shoulders. Desperately, I cut the painting off at her neck. Now, I had a sick and intense blue head of my principal and it looked very much like her. I frantically pasted it on another piece of white paper. Then it looked something like her blue head on a plate, minus the plate. And maybe in the back of my mal-adjusted high school mind, that is just where I wanted her. That painting never saw another face, blue or otherwise.

Camping at Mongaup Pond

2010-07-12T09:16:00.009-04:00

We went camping this weekend at Mongaup Pond, Livingston Manor, NY. Story to follow. Click on the photos to enlarge.

Paleontology and the Nucleotide New Wave

2010-06-30T17:30:00.121-04:00

“There are two types of people in the world, those who divide the world into two types of people, and those who don’t. ” –Robert Benchley

As an evolutionary geneticist, the theoretical basis as to why I was at a paleontological field site in Kenya last summer is clear to me—but it’s not necessarily easy-to-explain-to-your-mother obvious. Here, I revisit the ideology that brought genetics and paleontology together and me to Africa:

In the 1930s, a few intrepid geneticists began to incorporate their ideas about the dynamics of living populations into a wider evolutionary framework, that included paleontology. And one paleontologist in particular, George Gaylord Simpson, was instrumental in forwarding the concepts from population geneticists into the minds, but probably not hearts, of paleontologists. What emerged was called “The Modern Evolutionary Synthesis”. It was an extension and refinement of Darwin’s way of understanding the natural world. It gave us a way of using gene frequencies in living populations to explain the formation of species diversity, both spatially and temporally.

One tenet of “The Synthesis” was that there is no inherent difference between the evolution that shapes living populations from generation to generation, and the evolution that has formed wildly different species forms over millions of years of geologic time. This was a big deal. Some scientists thought that population genetics was not enough to explain the vast discontinutites in the fossil record, that instead there was some kind of qualitative difference between these two modes of evolution. Today, we essentially agree that microevolution (or population genetics) begets macroevolution (or speciation). And its quite beautiful to envision forms unfolding this way, where staggering diversity emerges from the humble tick of constant gradual change.

Although we regularly reflect on this elegant theory, it is difficult to actively merge these two data types in a biologically meaningful way. There is a network of insurmountable complexity between one nucleotide being replicated imperfectly and causing a consequential mutation, to understanding a menagerie of fossil forms. Despite this, there are a few examples where these two data types are used in a synthetic way.

One way you might imagine that fossils and DNA dovetail is when DNA is still organically residing in the fossilized specimen. This is how the Neanderthal genome was able to be assembled. And recently, DNA was extracted from a fossil finger bone in Siberia which showed that it was an entirely new species that existed between 48,000 and 30,000 years ago. But there is a turning point, that is dependent on both time and the fossilization environment, where virtually all DNA leaves the building. When fossils are nucleotideless like this, it takes conceptual creativity to save them from careening into deep time, like stone dragons, decoupled from the dynamic flow of neontology.

Humans and chimpanzees shared a common ancestor approximately 6 million years ago. This common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees shared a common ancestor with gorillas approximately 8 million years ago. How do we arrive at these time estimates? We need both fossils and genes. The neutral theory of molecular evolution predicts that certain regions of the genome, which are not functionally constrained, mutate at a constant rate over time. Like a consistent ticking molecular clock through time, change, change, change, change. So, by evaluating how different the gene sequences are between two living species, we can estimate how much time has passed since they last shared a common ancestor. However, to accurately connect the genetic distance with time, we need to know how fast the clock ticks. Enter the fossils. Geneticists use fossils to calibrate the molecular clock. We use a fossil that, based on its suite of morphological characters, represents a putative common ancestor between two living lineages. The fossil is dated. This date is used to calibrate the clock. There are not enough fossils to fit neatly into every divergence point between all living species. So, we use one well dated and morphologically informative fossil to calibrate the clock and then all other nodes in the tree, or points of divergence, are inferred based on the genetic distance between the living species. It sounds crazy, and it is kind of crazy, but this is how its done.

When fossils are analyzed and allocated to taxonomic groups, there has to be a method to quantify difference between two specimens. To do this, something has to be known about how skeletal evolution may progress. For example, if a particular feature is measured on two fossil specimens, which differ, how do we know we are comparing equivalent features? Enter, you guessed it, genetics. But also please welcome, our marvelous friend, the study of development, or ontogeny. The study of evolutionary-development, or Evo-Devo, is another place where genetics and paleontology gracefully meet. There are two ways which evo-devo provides evo-info for paleo-bio. One way is that the genetic and developmental basis of skeletal features can tell us if two features, in two different species, are homologous and should be compared. Additionally, paleontologists interpret fossil morphology and ascribe adaptationist explanations to particular features (e.g. a bone like this was used for that function). Ideally, these explanations are grounded in an understanding of what features develop independently. One cannot necessarily say that fingers were shorter because they were used for x, because feet and hands are governed by a common developmental pathway, and maybe it was the feet that were under direct selection. So, selection for one feature can result in another feature just changing along with it, for no adaptive reason, but because they are developmentally linked.

Which brings me to my big idea, which I wanted to dream up while staring out at Lake Victoria last summer, but it didn’t quite happen that way. Hopefully, I can make a contribution to the field—through the paired study of population genetics and skeletal morphology—which will be truly applicable to paleontology. That is what I want. I want to synthesize my evolutionary cake, and eat it too.

The first scientists who brought about this New Synthesis were not only brilliant, they were tolerant and open to other ways of knowing. This is rare. Once you become a part of any group, you learn that there are subgroups and sub-beliefs within the larger group. The subgroups are rarely philosophically harmonious. It’s silly. In the case of evolutionary biology, its best to gather many independent lines of evidence to begin to answer questions about the past, which, we can all agree, is thrilling and mysterious and over.

Blog Post Outtakes:

Waiter, there is a fossil in my hypothesis.

Get your fossils out of my hypothesis.

say fossilized hypotheses five times, fast.

The thing about the genome is that it does not record the evolutionary losses. When an allele is detrimental to life and reproductive success, it is not maintained in the genomes of the members of a population. Fossils record more than that, they record the evolutionary successes and the losses, the winners and losers all fossilize, its all there, except that its not.

There are some lineages that lived in the past but have no living members today. Death is sad but can you imagine how tragic it was the day the last Parathropus died? or even his or her last lonely conspecificless weeks on earth! We do not think there are any direct members of this lineage still in existence. In an evolutionary sense, some deaths are not really ends, while some, heartbreakingly, are.

And I suddenly turn and see your fabulous blank.

2010-06-07T19:20:00.047-04:00

The World Science Festival happened in New York last week. It brought forty compelling, provocative and inspiring events that illustrated, contemplated and celebrated science.

I only made it to one inspiring lecture because the rest of the time, well, I was slowly and mildly tortuously carving out a dissertation topic for myself. I attended “Strangers in the Mirror”. The topic was a neurological condition called “prosopagnosia”, or “face blindness”.

There were two invited speakers. One was Oliver Sacks, a neuroscientist who—in addition to practicing medicine—lovingly writes popular books that bring rare neurological conditions to public awareness. He wrote the book “Awakenings”, which then became a movie. The other guest was Chuck Close, a painter of the giant, astonishingly detailed portraits which, upon inspection, are composed of small repeating shapes, sometimes fingerprints, rips of paper or blobs and rings of beautiful interlocking colors.

Oliver’s stories always captivate and Chuck’s paintings provoke an almost unanimous sense of emotional and technical awe. Both of these men are “face blind”, which means that they cannot recognize the faces of people who they have already met. Clearly, this has caused difficulty in their lives, and intriguingly, they have overcome it in different ways. Chuck described how he has learned to bullshit a lot, because people remember him, and he doesn’t know them. Oliver, on the other hand, withdraws from people so as not to have to face, the sea of unrecognizable faces. And maybe that is when he does his quiet and thoughtful writing.

Prosopagnosia is at least part of the reason why Chuck Close paints such amazing portraits. He is obsessed with the face. He described a human face as more of a landscape, than a window to a person. He sees something we don’t, because we see something he doesn’t.

Oliver describes people in his stories in a way that captures their deeply personal, neurologically-unique, perspective. Maybe prosopagnosia makes him a more objective scientist? Perhaps he should be a cultural anthropologist, then he would never feel any non-scientific attachment to his individual subjects.

But, you have to wonder how personal relationships progress, or don’t, with this condition. It must be extremely difficult to make friends or meet acquaintances. And it must be surreal when the man at the coffee-cart knows your usual order. For the loved ones of those with “face-blindness”, I imagine it something like that scene from Its a Wonderful Life when Mary looks George square in the face, but doesn’t know him.

I am always interested in any supposed, or actual, intersection of science and art, but that is not really why I went to this lecture. I went because I am not face blind. I am the opposite. Oliver described a normal distribution of facial-recognition skills in the human population, with most people falling somewhere in the middle. I suspected that there was an opposite-Oliver end to this continuum. I was right. He went on to describe people who are extremely adept at facial-recognition. They gave a “test” to the audience. I scored a perfect 10, as did only a handful of other people in the auditorium audience. I am a “super recognizer”, or so they labeled it. I knew it.

If I see a picture of your mother from when she was young, in a crowd of other children, I can tell you which one she is. I once walked down to the subway platform and picked out the woman from the laundromats sister, I had never seen her before. Then, sure enough her sister walked over to join her, and it was the woman I knew. It gets weirder. I once recognized my friends boss, from the back, in a winter coat, on the train platform several feet away, I have met him once.

I don’t consider this a talent, its really more like the characteristic of a savant. And I am torn between using my power for good or for evil. Most times I use it for evil, or more like “no good”. I use it to avoid people. I always see them before they see me and I deftly duck down another avenue or behind a tree, without so much as a trace. Its great.

Recently, I decided that I should probably grow up and start using this trait for something productive. I could use it to walk up to people at professional conferences—who by the second day had removed their name tag—and introduce myself. Well, my interpersonal skills and courage aren’t nearly as honed as my skills of facial-recognition. I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Maybe next time. The faces I know will all be there again.

I wonder about populations of primates, like chimpanzees, which, because of their population history, have more total genetic diversity than all modern humans do. Do they also have more facial diversity? And to what degree do primates recognize the faces of con-specifics? And what might a population of extinct human ancestors look like, if they had more total facial diversity than we have today? Either males and females being more divergent, or just more facial variation overall. I suspect that this skill of understanding facial nuance would not necessarily be adaptive if faces were more wildly and obviously diverse than they are today.

It was tremendous to learn how Oliver Sacks and Chuck Close have struggled, and succeeded. And how this condition has fueled their impressive work. I thought the lecture spoke universally to overcoming any type of disadvantage and to spinning an inability into a keen and extraordinary awareness. I am thankful for their candor.

To those with prosopagnosia, faces are freed from the history that inhabits them, reduced to swerves of interesting flesh. And with that, virtually every human face provides an infinite resource of visual novelty. Certainly sometimes the possibility of who someone might be—without knowing the schlep that they really are—makes a face even more fabulous.

Together in its arms

2010-05-03T09:06:00.015-04:00

We couldn’t figure out what was wrong with it. We repeatedly inspected this alleged misfit and found it to be normal by our standards. We wanted it as our own. Oh the excitement that soon we would have a real grown-up couch. My mind raced to the glow of movie nights, to spontaneous naps and flopping down on it in the evening, to somersaults over its arms and dear friends visiting. We would be a little more normal, even if it wasnt quite. It was coverless, stripped to its vulnerable white batting. But with our ebullient enthusiasm, we decided we could make a couch cover. piece. of. cake. Lets buy it. As is. The man at IKEA who sold it to us didn’t realize it was a fold-out, so he gave us the regular oddball couch price. But when his guys lifted it for us, the secret of its heavy metal under-architecture was revealed. Graciously, he didn’t raise the price. We had scored.

We went to a fabric store in the west 20s and fell impossibly in love with an orange and magenta cross-silk. This was the fabric for our naked couch, and we bought a ton of it just in case. We were amateurs at this furniture buying and decorating game, but the fun was directly proportional to our cluelessness. The couch sat with this sari-appropriate fabric draped and pinned all over it for several months as a “test”. It did not look neat, or really normal, but we adored it and our life together on it.

to be continued...

garden fête at sunset.

2010-04-26T10:29:00.004-04:00

swooning over this image {and its implications} via Apartment #34

beachy goodness

2010-04-23T09:36:00.004-04:00

a tranquil, glittering beachy moment for you to gaze at,

sans sand grains between your teeth.

via the talented Alicia Bock at bloom, grow, love.

You Are What They Ate

2010-04-12T02:15:00.018-04:00

Fad diets abound in our society, sometimes they are backed by folklore, bad-science, pseudo-science, your mother or just wishful eat-thinking. Ugly hard-cover diet books pepper the sale shelves at bookstores. Everybody seems to have an answer, and nobody is persistently right.

But, diet is serious scientific business especially in the context of human evolution and adaptation. Can we reconcile our understanding of dietary adaptations over deep time with what you should make for dinner tonight? Well, perhaps with caution and a little nostalgia, it’s possible.

One hallmark of our genus, Homo, is a brain larger than that of our hominin forebearers. An explanation posited for the evolutionary burgeoning of the hominin brain is a dietary shift. The idea is that our brain, energetically, is an expensive tissue to develop and maintain and more dense high-calorie foods would have been required to support its needs. Maybe it was meat, they say. It has also been suggested that tubers may have provided crucial calories to hominins in times where other foods may have been scarce.

The above hypotheses have been tested in extant taxa and are continually being explored via environmental reconstruction, hunter/gatherer analogy and extensive mechanistic and isotopic studies of dentition. Fast forward to a more modern time, the onset of agriculture and animal domestication, approximately 10,000 years ago. Genetic adaptations to digest lactose and starch have been discovered in living human populations and temporally traced to major shifts in cultural food practices. Also, some populations have better tolerance for metabolizing alcohol. A recent paper just came out that Japanese people borrow bacteria from sushi, it then integrates into their stomach flora and enables better digestion of sushi. And there may be some evidence that this borrowed marine bacteria is heritable from parent to child!

The foods are diverse, but idea is the same. If we assert that diet is an environmental element that has driven selection and adaptation, then what we are saying is that certain individuals have some genetic or metabolic mechanism that allows them to better handle the foods that are in abundance. They are then healthier, have more offspring, the trait is honed and handed down to future generations. Its the classic gene-culture interaction.

This brings me to my main point. I think that the foods that we are best equipped to digest and glean the most nutrients from are foods that our very recent ancestors ate. I think there must be some more nuanced, as yet undiscovered, physiological adaptations to what people were eating just a few generations ago in your lineage.

So, eat mainly what your grandmother made, or what her grandmother did, but dont necessarily eat what mine did. Its a reason to hand recipes down with mitochondria. Oh and maybe its all just an excuse for me to go to Motorino’s and to drink Chianti, you say? well so what if it is.

tomato pin cushions (and strawberries too)

2010-04-09T11:19:00.003-04:00

ooooOOOO look at this collection of vintage tomato pin cushions. I love the nuanced variation in a collection of many similar things. via A Collection A Day.

Blogging is Thinking, Online

2010-04-09T10:01:00.008-04:00

Today is the 4th Birthday of this Blog! It’s also the Birthday of my husband’s brother, and my brother’s wife. So, its a magical day all around, that April 9th!

Thank you for reading and then reading again. And thank you to Blogger for giving me a medium which encourages and allows me to write, because an old notebook just doesn’t have the same thrill:

{We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospection—Anais Nin}

{For your born writer, nothing is so healing as the realization that he has come upon the right word—Catherine Drinker Bowen}

{Writing is thinking, on paper—William Zinsser}

{How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. —Annie Dillard}

Click here for my very first post, back when the blog was called Petri Dish.

Side Dishes

2010-04-06T14:43:00.005-04:00

When I get bored with what I am doing, which is often, I dream of side-jobs and side-businesses that I can get involved in or invent. Sometimes simply thinking of the schmorgasborg of possibilities makes me feel at ease.

Anyway, I had two ideas this week of the side dish nature:

1) I want to start a business where I go into people’s offices and rehabilitate their old potted plants that they have been neglecting. I will re-pot, trim off dead leaves, water them and give them directions for future care. My business would be called something like “Company Growth”.

2) Also, what if I designed a shirt that had an image on it that could only be seen from a certain distance away, and that specific distance away would be the distance I would want most people to be away from me.

April rising

2010-04-02T12:58:00.012-04:00

incredibly lovely patterns {and styling} from the april anthropologie catalog. click on image to enlarge.

Woman Still Uncertain about Future Man

2010-03-31T00:28:00.015-04:00

Are humans still evolving? is a question often asked in undergraduate Evolutionary Anthropology courses and its an important and honest query that we would all like to be able to answer. Although evolutionary theory is necessarily retroactive, I invite you to join me in speculating forward, to the future of our species. Now, for a moment, please put aside the obvious abyss of uncertainty that the future repeatedly confronts us with, and that Hostess snowball you are eating.

I recently read an article called, “Evolution stops here: Future Man will look the same”. It was written by a David Derbyshire and it quotes a geneticist named Steve Jones from the University College London. He posits that humans have stopped evolving because we no longer interface as intimately with our environment as we once did. Now we live in houses, have central air and plenty of food. The article also says that the decrease in older fathers, leads to fewer mutations passed on to offspring—because mutations in sperm cells accrue over an individual male’s lifetime. And with increased travel and globalization, there are fewer isolated populations of people, and this may cause a decline in the randomness that evolutionary change is predicated on.

It’s possible that some of the geneticist’s original points may have been lost in the brevity of the journalistic translation. So I address the following points to the article, not necessarily to the geneticist, and to you.

Firstly, it is true that our relationship to the environment has changed dramatically in modern times. We do live in houses with central air and we do have an abundance of agriculturally grown and processed food. However, we don’t all have the HVAC technician on speed dial and we don’t all have a stockpile of twinkies, ding-dongs or ho-hos. What about contemporary non-Western societies that subsist on hunted or gathered food stuffs? And what about the poor schleps with no central air, like me? I think this article underrepresents the heterogeneity with which modern humans, from all parts of the world, interact with their environment. It is true that some hunter-gatherer populations are dwindling in the face of increased agricultural practices, but they are not gone yet.

Alternatively, Western practices such as controlled housing temperature and our new processed diet may present some novel selective pressures of their own. For example, our increasingly sedentary lifestyle and our ubiquitous consumption of processed products such as high-fructose corn syrup. These elements of our society are the new selective pressures. Childhood obesity is skyrocketing, and I cannot imagine this will not have some effect on the fitness, meaning how many viable offspring are produced, of this new generation.

There may be fewer older fathers than there were in the 18th century, but what about older mothers? In this case, our culture is evolving and is selecting for mothers who are able to have successful offspring—who are themselves reproductively fit—into their later years. True, this seems like a predominantly Western phenomenon, but women are having children later and later in life. This can lead to increased stress on the mothers body and it increases the possibility of offspring having chromosomal abnormalities, such as down-syndrome. This can’t mean nothing for our species. This may have some long term effect on our life history, and more specifically, the increment of time that females are reproductively fit. Mothers who have healthy daughters later in life may pass on the trait of being able to have successful offspring later in life. Longevity and reproductive health are, to some extent, heritable. Or perhaps mothers who have daughters later in life may pass on inability or difficulty in having successful offspring. All female babies are born with all of their eggs, perhaps the development and viability of the female fetus’ eggs is affected by the mothers health and age during gestation.

And what about artificial insemination, IVF or assisted hatching? Do we know the long term fitness effects that these novel reproductive practices may have on our species? No, I don’t believe we really do. And I say this with a gentle hand, quite simply, offspring are being born who would otherwise not be. Genes are being passed on to the next generation that would otherwise not be. What is their fitness level, how many successful offspring will they have, and what traits will they then pass on to their own offspring? So, while prezygotic selective pressure may be abated through these new medical practices, I cannot imagine that the subsequent population will not differ in its genetic and physiological landscape.

Evolution is random. Mutation and genetic drift both shape the population’s collective genome in a random manner. This author suggests that the lack of isolated human populations will halt randomness. It is true that genetic drift—or the selection of alleles from one generation to the next based on stochastic sampling—is stronger in smaller populations. But genetic drift is not absent in larger populations. Also—while it may be more rare and less random than we once thought—mutations do continually arise and lead to novel phenotypes that interact with the ever changing environment.

And what about the environment, or large scale climate change? For one thing, global warming can affect the ecological habitat of some parasites, like Plasmodium which causes malaria, and that can affect humans. Microorganisms that lead to diseases that we don’t have inexpensive widespread cures for, are key in the evolution of our species. Individuals who are resistant or less susceptible to disease, because of a random mutation, survive in the population to reproduce, others don’t. The flu virus rapidly mutates every year, so as long as viruses and bacteria are still evolving, we will be too.

The point is, adaptations to temperature, diet, reproductive robusticity or disease resistance, may still be relevant to the evolution our species. Natural selection may no longer be traditionally “natural”, but it’s still selective. And maybe more directly, “Woman Still Uncertain about Future Man” is not as sexy a headline as “Evolution stops here: Future Man will look the same”. And perhaps Future Man will fuel vehicles with Hostess snowballs and wear t-shirts that say “Only Losers Evolve”, but then again, we wont really know.

a little birdie told me

2010-03-23T08:13:00.009-04:00

I am addicted to Twitter. For those of you who don’t know it, its a website/service that allows you to get snippets of streaming information from organizations or people of your choice. When you decide you want to know whats going on with someone, or something, via Twitter, you find their Twitter profile and you “Follow” them.

Its different from Facebook because its less personal, and that is a wonderful thing. You do not have to accept people as friends, or even “friends”, and the amount of information doled out is, mercifully, short and sweet.

I do not follow many friends, so I don’t get updates like, “there is slightly more jelly than peanut-butter on my sandwich today.” And I don’t follow celebrities, although you can. I have accumulated a list of organizations that I follow (NYTimesArts, several Museums, NatureNews, ScientificAmerican, Pratt Institute) that update me on smart and interesting information. All. Day. Long.

Here are a few links that I have learned about via Twitter that I thought I would share with you:

The Promise of Evolutionary Synthesis:linking previously unconnected scientific ideas together.

Artists Reconstruct the Past:paleoartistry and its origins. see also, my blog post about this very topic.

Super Color Vision in Humans:some humans may be able to see more nuanced shifts in color.

Death Blooms:copper urns that have weathered, very spectacular and strange and sad.

Perfect Lego Art:the whimsy and simplicity of legos in unexpected outdoor spaces.

A Twitter sized thought I had last weekend: What if all car horns sounded like notes from wind instruments, then a traffic jam might sound more like a symphony.

of Brilliance and Brilliance.

2010-03-19T12:43:00.033-04:00

My brain responds dramatically to light. All through the dark winter nights my personal struggles about [insert word] reach sisyphean proportions. I get especially dark and brooding. I quit things, break off relationships, decide [blank] is just not for me, pack my bags, hang my head and incessantly navel-gaze, during winter. Its flat out pathetic. Now that sunny spring has arrived in New York, I realize that this winter problem I have, is getting worse.

But then, a larger thought occurred to me. I know I am not the only person who reports these feelings during winter. And I started wondering about seasonal patterns of ideas. I wonder how music written, paintings painted, scientific eurekas, and novels or love letters penned—in winter—differ from those in spring. They must. Although, out of struggle, and winters of discontent, great work most certainly has sprung, but not if one found themselves too melancholy to concentrate.

Seasonality is something that is widely discussed in the primate ecology literature. Trees fruit seasonally (or mast), food abundance shifts and animals respond both behaviorally (less competition for more resources) and physiologically (better nutrition leads to healthier, and more, offspring). Or when any animal lives in a seasonally shifting climate, adaptations to fluctuating temperatures, landscapes and resources are what’s crucial to survival.

You might say our relationship to the earth, and its resources, is not knitted quite as tightly as the primates to their fruit. Globalization allows other climates to provide us with faraway warm-weather resources year-round. And we also have the option of hopping on JetBlue to experience a verdant season, somewhere else.

I know that light influences hormones in the brain. I want to know more about how other animal brains respond to light. And what’s with nocturnal animals, like possums and vampires, they must have some alternate neurophysiological profile to diurnal animals?

Also, perhaps more poetically, I am envisioning a cultural history of ideas, arranged according to how close the sun was to the location of the birth of each idea, published by Phaidon, or as a large mural, or information graphic, or a map in radiant color. Would there be some kind of latitudinal gradient of idea strength or quality as one approaches the equator, I am not sure.

Or maybe as the poem suggests, its not really the springtime or the sunlight, its the drama of seasonal change that seems to ignite an intellectual dawn. “If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant: if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome.”—Anne Bradstreet

Oh and happy luminescent spring my darlings!

light love

2010-03-15T21:23:00.009-04:00

at the new 5:30 this evening

I fell in love with the lingering daylight

that was saved for me

image via bloom, grow, love

Maternal Imprinting

2010-03-01T18:02:00.026-05:00

Did you ever spend all day at the beach and then close your eyes in the evening and see waves? Or did you ever spend all day driving and go to bed and see the road? How much of the beach or the road can you really make out? And how much is your brain just making you feel it, in its most drowsy and abstract incarnation?

Well, some nights I go to sleep and I see patterns on fabric. One after another. They are always colored, sometimes brightly, and flat. They are not consciously constructed and often, unexpected color combinations present themselves. But its not like I really see these, like a proper hallucination. Its just that on the brink of sleep, I think about these things and my mind wanders like a plotless shimmering dream.

My maternal grandmother worked as a dress maker at Saks Fifth Avenue in New York, NY. She came from Algeria, was French and her fabric draping skills were legendary, or so I have been told. Because of this, as a child, my mother was dressed in her Sunday best every day of the week. By the time my mother grew up, married my father and moved out, it was the middle of the 60s. She embraced 60s fashion with a particular grace and restraint. She was not a hippy and her skirts were never too micro. But by today’s standards she would fall on fashion’s flashy side, although she would deny it. She had a gold embroidered dress, a bright bright red bouchlé skirt suit and a long gown with only one shoulder and a gossamer fabric wing fluttering behind her on one side. By the time I was born, she had toned it way down, but I still knew of the fuschia prints that bloomed in her heart. Partly I still knew because the clothes were all neatly relegated to a metal cabinet in our attic which, in spite of my childhood dust allergy, I visited often.

All of this focus on fabric and fit and femininity in the family affects a girl. The tradition of fashion and what was considered right and beautiful was given to me. I have spent years toying with it in varying doses and rejecting it at times when I felt a rebellion of practicality or grittiness swelling. I remember little containers of endless varied buttons and scraps of deeply colored thick laces and trims, and even though they were all reduced to a box or two in the bottom of my mom’s closet, it was impossible not to vividly imagine the garment of their origin.

I have always been fascinated by what makes a favorite color, a favorite. Or what makes someone go into a clothing store and really deeply “ooooooOOO” at something. And I realized that the patterns that I am most intensely drawn to are patterns that look something like, something my mother wore. The colors and combinations I tend towards are attached to memories of her memories.

Although I think about and very much love loud beautiful clothing, I don’t quite have the personality to carry most of it off—that I got from my Dad. You can’t wear a bright orange pea coat and a concerned scowl. And most times I find myself wanting to be discreet or invisible and a red suit unfortunately wont do. Also, I have no sisters and most days the only people around me were my brothers in blue jeans and old sneakers, so that too influenced my sensibilities. I spent 12 years in a plaid school uniform and oh yes, I am training to be a scientist, so there is quite the de-emphasis on clothing. But I live in Manhattan, pulled in many fashion conscious and unconscious directions, there is hope yet.

My grandmother was very sick before she died. She was in her home in Queens, NY in a hospital style bed, with nurses taking care of her every minute. It was the 4th of July, which was her birthday. I was about 14 or so and wearing a red t-shirt and blue and white checkered short-shorts. She reached up from her bed and touched my shorts and she said “seersucker”, with soft approval. This is something that will always be with me.

The Evolution of Illumination

2010-02-17T17:14:00.001-05:00

http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/the_evolution_of_illumination/

Daily Dialogue

2010-02-12T18:37:00.010-05:00

Me: “Get out of your damn pajamas and go running!”

Me: “but its COLD and it SNOWED and when I get tired of running I will be improperly dressed for the weather and stranded.”

Me: “Ok, so don’t go running, just go outside with running clothes under your coat to make yourself feel sporty and energetic.”

INSERT HOURS OF PUTTERING AROUND APARTMENT MAKING BUSY NOISES.

Me: “okay, yes indeed, I think I can handle that.”

WALKS OUTSIDE INTO COLD SUNSHINE, PUTS ON SUNGLASSES AND IPOD (on shuffle), BEGINS WANDERING.

Me: “So, what about your dissertation project, aren’t you going to work on that today?”

Me: “Yeah, what aBOUT my project!”

STEVIE WONDER, SUPERSTITION COMES ON IPOD.

FADE OUT.

Idle Hands

2010-02-03T22:55:00.015-05:00

This semester, by a twist of paperwork, I am not teaching. People tell me that this is wonderful. I can focus on my own

project and not worry about freshmen who dont know how to spell A-u-s-t-r-a-l-o-p-i-t-h-e-c-u-s. Most graduate students that I have found, hate to teach. They slide their heavy feet along and lament about taking the time to teach students who just don’t care. These graduate students have much more important work to attend to. Well, I have found, that I don’t.

I am feeling astonishingly useless as I sit around at the computer day after day and read and think and write and question. Its just about the most indulgent, selfish activity a human could engage in. Can you imagine another primate spending time on such an activity, that does not procure food or sex. I know, I know, humans have loftier intellectual goals than the basic need to sustain life. But it just feels wrong, for me anyway.

Amazingly enough, its just as self-indulgent and vain as being a true fine artist would have been. But then at least my art could have made someone happy. I doubt my dissertation will bring a smile to anyone’s face in quite the same way a painting might.

My work now is not emotionally cathartic, nor is it practical. At times, like these, its hard to justify doing it at all.

Today I met my husband for lunch. We sat across the table from three women who had on shockingly immense diamond rings and fur coats that looked like they had murdered a bear. The women were in beautiful cashmere sweaters talking about how they have applied to pre-schools for their children and are waiting to hear back. One woman complained incessantly about the nanny, who was no doubt home with her children as we sat there. Another woman scolded the waitress because her now empty plate had been sitting in front of her for a full 15 *gasp* minutes! They seemed cliché and bored.

I realized that I am in the same position as these women (sans the rings, coats, nannies and sweaters of course). But with all the wretched, lonely, despicable anxious parts of having nothing to do and none of the money to actually do something.

As things stand now, I would be better off working in a coffee or pizza shop. But I am afraid my patience and skill for those tasks would fall short of the average person. I know, self pity is always unbecoming.

This video about graduate students from the Simpsons is pretty accurate this week: click to view.

&

2010-02-03T10:42:00.000-05:00

ampersand project

“ ”

2010-02-02T10:07:00.007-05:00

And how about this quote for a Tuesday, late morning.

Someone reminded me that I referenced this quote once. I didn’t remember using it and suspect it wasn’t really me and that they were mistaken. I am happy to take the credit though:

“ No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”

—Eleanor Roosevelt

“ ”

2010-01-29T17:41:00.005-05:00

ok, on an up note for Friday early evening, lets try this quote:

“life is not easy for any of us. but what of that? we must have perseverance and, above all, confidence in ourselves. we must believe that we are gifted for something and that this thing must be attained.” —Marie Curie

Undiscoveries

2010-01-18T16:17:00.020-05:00

I began this post while sitting in the lab at school on Martin Luther King Day. No one was there. It was like a post-apocalyptic world. And because of some poorly developed plot circumstance, I thought I was the only survivor. Then the locksmith swiftly keyed into our lab and scared the shit out of me. I hid my facebook page, blogger page and the off-beat scientific publication on my screen and cowered with a quick beating heart. Sal didnt notice, a thing.

Which delivers me directly into the pulsing vein of my next point: Science is scary. If you are a non-scientist, the intricacies of the scientific world can seem mysterious, intimidating or insurmountable. And if you are a scientist, you know that science really truly requires deep intellectual risks that ignite unparalleled feelings of unease. Other people might describe this as the rush of discovery, I might too. But suffice it to say that science can at once be unbelievably wonderful and atrociously heart-wrenchingly terrible.

Science takes courage, creativity and sometimes brutal honesty to practice. One has to be sensitive, deeply pensive and yet dispassionately logical and critical. And not everyone is cut out to do this.

I listen to Obama talk about how we need children to excel more in math and science. and I notice a poster at school encouraging undergraduates to pursue math and science careers. But really, really do they know what they are getting themselves in to? and really, should we be encouraging more average people to pursue a career that requires such a bizarre combination of intense dedication, intelligence and persistence to excel in? Maybe its best that just a few nerdy boys in the back of the chemistry room take this on. Maybe its best that most of us keep our distance. Maybe its best for Science that pretty girls stick to being pretty, jocks continue being sporty and that most of us just look on in some kind of half-blind respect and delight at what those hard working mal-adjusted weirdos are accomplishing.

a reminder that winter can be beautiful...

2010-01-15T13:22:00.014-05:00

images by Alicia Bock via unruly things

Rude Alert

2010-01-11T13:01:00.015-05:00

New Yorkers are not all rude. A day or two around Manhattan will reveal a lot of door holding, seats given up for elderly riders, coins dropping in cups, strangers dogs kanoodling and overall graciousness. The idea that New Yorkers are all rude is an outdated stereotype. It was once more true, in a grittier past life, but now it isnt.

So the other day I was in a wretched mood. I had nothing to give. I was not smiling or holding doors or thinking about volunteering or recycling. I was walking through the cold with my ipod on and a scowl. I felt like an actress doing a historical reenactment of a time gone by, you know, for the sake of tourists who expect rudeness. It was a retro move of mine. I thought Ed Koch or The Beastie Boys might jump out at me and give a public service announcement. But they didnt. And I went on brazenly ignoring homeless people, musicians, puppies and people handing out pamphlets. Because I could.

X Out

2010-01-07T21:30:00.004-05:00

Damn you Christmas. Why do you always have to come, and then go? leaving garbage bags full of wrapping paper and bleakness in your sugary wake. No other time in winter has the same timbre of bright or cheery intentions. And even though sometimes it causes stress, the real problem I have with Christmastime is that it ushers in winter with a big fat smile-only to dessert you, shoot your eye out and then desert you.

Hello second week of January, we meet, unfortunately, again.

A Primate Love Letter

2010-01-06T13:22:00.003-05:00

One thing that comes up continuously in the lab sections that I teach is that the writing is bad. And more seriously, flawed thinking about the topic is sometimes only captured on the written page, too elusive for multiple choice or class discussions to capture its sweet tangled inaccuracies. In some cases, students who are bright and interested will write papers that are just subtly, not. quite. right. But before I go any further, I would like to say that, I am no expert. I just know what patterns have emerged in the student writing I have seen over the years. I have not been formally taught how to evaluate science writing, or how to write.

Many students in anthropology 101 are writing a science paper for the first time at the college level. And for these students one almost universal error in their writing is that they put too much opinion and emotion into it. They get excited about the material (which is great and encouraged) but they flourish and wax inappropriately, rather than address it in the dispassionate, neutral manner that it requires. The class is about primates, which makes it accessible and easy to relate to, but also contributes to this problem. I doubt this happens at the same frequency in a course about drosophilia (fruit flies). I find too much talk of cute, emotional primates or superior species, where one is inherently better than another in some way.

Addressing this issue without extinguishing any enthusiasm requires careful consideration and I am still searching for ways to do it properly. Another problem that fuels this issue is that they arent reading the literature. So, they have nothing to say except what comes from their own warm primate heart. I need to address the issue of not reading the literature, not referencing it and just wandering through a cascade of baseless, biased claims. Its dangerous even.

I need to spend more time talking about the papers and what I expect. I fantasize about showing them a sentence that is all opiniony and cute and transforming the same general idea into more scientific terms. I also tell them, the shorter the sentences, the better. I often find long winded sentences with words like thus in them. Its an effort to sound smart. I know it. I appreciate the sentiment, I really do, and I have been there, but I need to channel their excitement into the correct format. And maybe I should spend an hour or two where we talk about how damn cute and lovely all the species are, and use all the elaborate and embellished and emotional adjectives we can find. You know, to get it out of our system, to show our appreciation without having to sound scientific about anything. Because truly, if I wasnt moved by primates, in all their fuzzy familiarity, I wouldnt be teaching this lab.

New Beginnings

2009-12-30T12:58:00.003-05:00

I am just not so sure about this current blog url and title. I never really was.

It occurred to me the other day that it could almost be misconstrued as being religious. When really, I just like the word incandescence, and how it can refer to a good old light-bulb, or more figuratively some hot or brilliant quality attributed to a literary character, or someone.

I need to leave the url the same for now, but was thinking of changing the name of this blog to bioluminescence. Yes, in fact I think I will do that for the new year.

Fragments, Figments and Visionaries

2009-11-28T16:26:00.061-05:00

When a fossil is found it is often broken up into small fragments. Sometimes, one small fragment is all that is found of a once whole skeleton, from a once whole individual, which lived and breathed and maybe reproduced and certainly died. On rare and serendipitous occasions, entire skulls or skeletons are found. But even then, depending on the circumstances of preservation, parts of the entire skeleton may be broken into smithereens.

Paleontologists are looking to reconstruct the past. After fossils are collected, the paleontologists all drift to sleep in their tents and dream about what this individual looked like in life, or what types of substrates it climbed on, or if it had stripes or speckles, or neither. But in the morning light, with a cool objective head, they snap out of it. Debuting threads of their visions only in slightly drunken, partial jokes at the camp table. They must just be absolutely burning to know what extinct species were like. Wanting, secretly and desperately to catch one impossible glimpse of it in life. And ultimately, isnt it that fantasy, fueled by the persistent mystery of the past, that engenders curiosity in all the historical sciences? It has to be. The fossil discovery is not the inspirational and orderly end of a scientific story, its the wild and unruly beginning.

In order to draw meaningful conclusions about the crumbly former animal the first thing that is often done is that the pieces are sometimes literally glued together. In the case of hominin fossils, and especially of hominin crania, casts of the original fossil are made and plaster fills in the spaces where the fossil is missing. The problem with this approach is that often these plaster filled structures, which are like hardened inferences, are used in analyses without regard for much of the inherent uncertainty of their form. For example, sometimes there are several possible orientations between two fragments, but they may be glued one way and firmly thought of that way for years to come.

More recently, with the advent of digital imaging, all the fragments of a hominin crania can be CT scanned and then manipulated in a virtual environment. The missing pieces can be inferred given biological and statistical prior probabilities, instead of just filled in with plaster. Taphonomic distortion can be corrected. Also, several possible reconstructions can be experimented with, without damaging the original fossil. In this case, the reconstruction can become one possible evolutionary hypothesis, just the way a phylogenetic tree is. When building phylogenetic trees, there is a method of measuring how well the data supports each given branch, its called bootstrapping. I wonder if it would be possible to ascertain a sort of bootstrap value for the position of each cranial fragment relative to the other neighboring fragments. The bootstrap value is based on resampling the genetic dataset again and again. The equivalent would be sampling of positions of the fossil fragments again and again. Anyway, there are many testable simulations that are opened up with this approach to reconstruction.

Another aspect of fossil reconstruction, which is done primarily for the purpose of popular science, is adding musculature and hypothetical skin, hair and eyes on fossil forms. When musculature is inferred, modern analogies are used to determine their direction, position and robusticity. This is not unlike looking at a fossil bone and determining its function based on modern analogies of how extant taxa use this bone. These fully fleshed out creatures can then be used in museums, documentaries, magazines etc. They present a hypothesis of how the extinct individual may have looked, based on the given data, and what can be ascertained via extant analogy. In the case of hominins especially, these reconstructions are almost always uncomfortable and goofy to look at, but its not necessarily because they are inaccurate, its because we have never seen anything like it before, and never will.

Scientists sometimes scoff at these physical or virtual forms, skeptical of the plaster, or the amount of silly scienceless speculation that is poured into each structure. These forms are sometimes squarely dismissed as “highly reconstructed”, or even, art. Its easy to critique a visual inference as unsupported conjecture. In fact, its too easy. I dont see what the alternative is to reconstructing a very fragmented fossil. For example, put a pile of fossil fragments in front of any paleontologist and then tie their hands behind their back and ask them what they are looking at. Free their hands and watch them pick it up, turn it around, inspect its morphology and see how it all fits together. A pile of fragments does not contribute to science in the same way an attempt at reconstructing it does. Sure, the conclusions drawn from this structure, that began as a pile, could be appropriately cautious, but you simply need to somehow put it together first. No one could resist.

I know what science is, and what it isnt. I am not suggesting that we build fantastical features in the space of missing bones, just that we acknowledge the skill, intent and biological information that do go into making reconstructions. Like many things, if its built only in your mind and not with your hands, its less vulnerable to hasty, dismissive critique. Where would paleontologists be without artists reconstructions anyway, to realize their visions, in fact or in error? Its not shameful to admit that we all have elaborate evolutionary fantasies. And I think some of the swift discrediting of this type of work stems from the fact that what scientists have imagined, in their tent, is not what materializes. But surely they have imagined something.

Type 1 Error

2009-11-21T22:09:00.016-05:00

Today we went to see an exhibit of Herb Lubalin’s typography work at The Cooper Union. He had an inclination for swashes and the biggest fattest statement fonts that devoured the page, followed by the thinnest serpentine line whirling to its most gradual halt. One important thing that I learned in typography class, and in design school in general, was that extreme unexpected contrast can make a lovely and engaging piece. I adore it when there is really really large type on the page, accompanied by the tiniest whispering text beside it. We are all constantly moved by fonts and what they insinuate. Some are just more aware of this than others. Fonts can change the meaning of a word. Fonts can be facial expressions, or songs for typed messages.

I find it difficult to reconcile my appreciation for typography between my design self and my science self.

When fonts are used in scientific presentations, figures or posters, it is paramount that they communicate clearly, of course. But something can communicate clearly and look good doing it, I think. If you increase the leading, or the tracking, it changes the feel of something. If you are the only person who is giving a scientific presentation and who has considered the typography, even if you are using the system Helvetica Neue, people may notice. And if bad typography is the order of the day, when you stray from that, people may notice. They dont even know what they are noticing, they just know it looks different. A soft breeze blows their hair as they look at it and a mint materializes in their mouth.

But when people tell you that they like the font in your scientific presentation, or on your poster, and thats all they say, that is just not good. It should be clear, but if any hint of flair eclipses the message, then you have not communicated, you have just decorated. You have opened your mouth and instead of p-values coming out, chocolate icing has. This is a painful reality for me. To shift from obsessing over the tiniest typographic detail, because you know it matters, to throwing it all away to Times New Roman, is hard. Its like cooking with your nose plugged up, speaking with no adjectives or staring your friend in the face and not admitting to knowing them. It can be done, its just a removal of an already established awareness.

For the purpose of science, I water down my design more with each passing day, so no one tastes the chocolate. Because I want to be taken seriously and I need to do so quietly. I now always use system fonts in my scientific presentations and stick to Times New Roman for all written papers. But each time I do, I die a little, to make everything look just like everything else, to deflavorize it, to make it expressionless. Science depends on objectivity. You cant construct a hypothesis and talk about how, you dont know why, but you just prefer one thing over another. You cant openly or irrationally love anything. And you cant send subliminal messages in your conclusion. I know this. But I am still holding out hope that there is a way to make peace with this duality.

In a way, its the most challenging typographic experiment, to massage the type into something that has no discernible smell but was cast entirely out of gardenias. Type is form, functioning. And in my mind, design at its best is efficient and logical and good science is staggeringly beautiful.

Out of Line

2009-11-11T18:57:00.023-05:00

Today in class our professor put a slide up of the image shown above. It is the frontispiece from a book called “Mans Place in Nature” by T.H. Huxley, an anthropologist who was one of the first to do comparative anatomy between apes and humans and recognize the striking similarities in skeletal form. Anyway, it is a lovingly detailed and compelling engraving and, it got me thinking.

Because its a successive progression of hominoids, all standing in line at the movie theatre, one might be led to think that humans evolved, in a linear fashion, from something that was like a living ape to the upright Annie Hall watching humans we see today. Well, that would be wrong, in a few ways. The first reason it is wrong is that when you learn about evolution and extinction and speciation you know, like so many hard won routes in life, human evolution was not linear. Artists need to take full advantage of how many dimensions a two dimensional graphic can depict. Although, I assume the artist, Mr. Waterhouse Hawkins, did what he was told in this case, to draw these apes all in a line, to suggest, because of their similar anatomical structures, that they all shared a common ancestor. This was quite innovative and bold at the time that it was published in 1863, so I dont mean to diminish its value. But what we know now about evolution has changed, so its important to have our images be an accurate reflection of the changing concepts. Well, at least that’s what I thought.

I was on my way to the interview to my absolute dream job, I was wearing a slightly ill-fitting too formal jacket and I was shuffling through the autumn leaves on the way to the museum. I had done a project, in art school, about human evolution. It was a hypothetical piece depicting what I thought would be a great exhibit at the museum in the hall of human evolution. And here I was at the very museum, going to the design department, because they called me, about to show my work. I was achingly naive and thrilled.

I got into the interview and showed the art director my work and when I flipped to my depiction of an exhibit on human evolution I paused and told her, “well I know this shows evolution in a linear fashion—(because it looked cool and worked well with my idea) I wanted to show all the hominin skulls printed on a translucent material so you could see them overlapping one another for comparison of size and traits, I imagined each panel printed or engraved on glass and large enough so a visitor could walk through each successive stage—but I know evolution is not linear”.

She paused and swallowed. At the end of the interview she gave me some advice, she said “Dont ever say anything negative about your own work in an interview”. Ok, she was correct, but I was also correct. I was right about the way evolution works, I was just naive in thinking that the designers would actually care. And anyway, I should have used my newly-acquired scientific knowledge to change the layout of my project and then just kept quiet. Or even better, just kept quiet. My heart was in the wrong department.

Needless to say, I didnt get the job.

And just today I shuffled through the autumn leaves to the same museum, but I didnt go to sweat over fonts and colors that no one cares about, I went to learn, about human evolution and how experimental, bushy, halting, complex and non-linear the real story may have been.

Be Mine

2009-11-07T13:39:00.013-05:00

He is at work right now. Its a Saturday. I am home on the couch blogging, drinking forbidden caffeine and thinking about how I should clean.

We have been together for over 10 years now. Not everyone knows that, because we have only been officially married for two. But the truth is, we have been married ever since we both uttered the words, “There’s no basement at the Alamo”, in tandem, in a dormroom in Brooklyn, so many years ago, his eyes aglint. Its a line from a movie that I will not explain further, so I can leave the people who know it, safe in their esoteric society with Simone.

I find, as we age, and life’s real or imagined difficulties spin around us, people dont like to hear good things. Maybe its just the people who I know. But its always so corny to talk about how wonderful your husband is. No one wants to hear it. Its so vomit inducing, especially for people who are single. But, I think my husband deserves an ode, and who better or where better to do it, than me on my blog. So, for those of you prone to romantically induced nausea, stop reading.

I am no fun on my own. Many of the curmudgeon genes from my Dads side are steadily expressing, except when Joe comes around. The man is so full of energy and spirit and good, that his presence makes the damn room glow. If you know him, you will know it. He never cleans or waxes about responsibility or complains, ever. Those are my jobs, I guess. I once told him that he was so immature that it was like having a son, and not a husband. He told me that if he were my son, then I was his moon. I was sunk with this romantic pun and thats pretty much how it goes around here each day. He is remarkably and infinitely compassionate and creative and funny, to the point that I dont think he is for real sometimes. But he is for real, and that is what is so enchanting. He makes everyone comfortable and puts even the most awkward people at ease. I love watching them unfurl for him, when I have known only their closed facade for years. He once gave me such sage advice about people, he said “everyone just wants to be aknowledged”, so simple and should be obvious, but to me, it wasnt. Everything Joe does, he puts his whole self into, from halloween to food shopping to doing laundry. Even this post is not really doing his complexity and intensity justice I am afraid, I could re-write this post until the 12th of never, and it still wouldnt do.

Last night, we went on a date, I ate a red velvet cupcake and Joe had banana pudding and this morning he is not here. I dont truly believe in soul mates, because its irrational to think that there is only one perfect mate out there for you. But if I did, Joe would be mine.

Here are a few more posts about Joe in case you missed them:

Black Eye, Black Belt and a Smile

Not Too Far Above

Secret Lemon Messages

A Ninja Among Us

The Shop

Space Cadets

Cognitive Efflorescence

2009-11-04T19:56:00.009-05:00

I am in the process of trying to come up with a dissertation topic. It is challenging, but I dont want any sympathy. I have recognized this period in my life as one of heightened intellectual luxury and I intend to enjoy every misled idea, or ignorance-based eureka that I have along the long way. I intend to love it when I go the whole day thinking that I am brilliant, only to find out that my project idea had been done in the '80s. Because somewhere, at some point, on a Thursday, at dusk, as I exit the building and put my iPod on, something will congeal into a project that is both inspiring and tractable. I just know it.

In the beginning of graduate school I experienced this reduced sense of awe as I learned more and more detail and uncertainty about each subject that I thought excited me. It was just like when you think someone is cool, and then you get to know them, and they suck. Incidentally, that is what I thought getting to know anything was like. But, I was wrong.

There are a few areas of Biological Anthropology that I was convinced I could never be interested in: teeth, population genetics, speciation and baboons, just to name a few. Well I have recently thought about these topics that I was initially bored by, but come at them from a different, more informed perspective and now I realize how important they are to the bigger picture and to progress in the field. This is truly amazing to my cynical mind and such a delicious unexpected treat to someone who has been jaded about school since age 6.

Also, I did not enter the PhD program already married to a taxon, hopelessly in love with studying gibbons or gorillas or gigantopithecus, like some people do. I get most excited about concepts and when a study begins with a simple and elegant idea and builds on it a thorough, novel and innovative approach. Just like one of my drawing teachers said once about trying to spiff up a bad drawing “you cant polish a turd”. Its true about dissertation topics too. I am very esthetically driven. I like when things are beautiful—but I dont only apply this to dresses and drawings—I apply it to ideas too. I get most excited about the edge or design of a project and it’s almost irrelevant what it is focused on, it could be a damn Plesiadapiform for all I care, well ok, maybe not a Plesiadapiform, but you get the idea.

The point is, I am letting myself wonder and wander and get excited and get disappointed and feel smart and snappy one minute and stupid as dirt the next, and soon it will hit me, this I know.

The title of this post was taken from the “flowery” language in one of the recently published Ardipithecus ramidus papers written by Tim White. I just cant stop with the puns, can I?

Slow Wri-ter.

2009-10-28T23:41:00.004-04:00

I wrote something truly terrible today. So astoundingly bad, that I had to write about it. Because I have a thing, with words. I have a little superficial stylistic, aesthetic respect for them and their placement and sound and interaction and oh yes, meaning. I want each sentence to be a tiny whirring machine that stirs. However, this is not always possible, or necessary.

I have a student who always stays after class to catch up. She has talked to me at length about how her lecture professor goes too fast with the powerpoint slides, and she is unable to keep up. I let her see my slides and we talk about the material. The other day, I noticed that her handwriting was insanely neat. She is probably 40 and looks like she may have another job, and a child, or two, or something. I watched her painstakingly copy the information from my slides into her notebook. Each letter was perfectly spaced from the next and unbelievably rounded. Her penmanship showed the kind of meticulous detail that is abandoned shortly after you learn to write in script, on thinly lined paper, with a pen. Its the kind of conscientiousness that is just not conducive to well, writing. I wondered if this was actually her problem. But then I wondered about the connection between speed of comprehension and speed of handwriting. Is there one? I dont know, but I wondered.

Which brings me to today. I was writing an exam myself. Because I am still at the hypocrisy inducing stage of graduate school where I teach, enforce rules on others, tell them how to improve, wonder what is holding them back, think like a professor, play dress up and then turn around and screw up royally in my own classes wearing sneakers with holes in them. Its almost ridiculous and certainly humbling. I began writing my exam very neatly today, although I was very nervous, so little, uncharacteristic flourishes emerged from my freshly shaky hand. I was not writing particularly physically slow. but. I. kept. stopping. to go back and read what I had written. I did not only want to convey uninspired lists of information about these astounding creatures. I wanted to convey how much I respect and understand the concepts and words that encircle them. This, incidentally, was not possible. I left out one whole question because I ran out of time. Twenty points, gone. And I had planned on using the word gestalt in my essay somewhere, but that never happened either.

And I must admit on this blog I go back incessantly and edit and re-edit and re-re-edit. It would be too embarrassing for you to know how often I actually do that. Because its also narcissism in this case, but thats kind of a good word too.

a link to another post about my word love, the sentence in the soil.

Good Africa: Part 1

2009-09-13T16:03:00.008-04:00

I have been home from Africa for over a month now. Finally, I am able to tell you the good things, and there were many.

We arrived in Nairboi, Kenya in the night on July 6th. My two friends and I checked into our hotel, The Kenya Comfort. Everything felt orange and brown and creaky and crumply and slow. The night was heavy with intentions. It was like a collarless dog that you go over to pet; it could greet you with a welcome wimper, or bite your fingers off. We dropped our belongings and headed to the hotel bar. I drank my first Tusker, a huge local beer that tasted pretty damn good. The three of us sat at a high small round table with metal chairs and wicker seats. Our feet did not touch the ground. We were tired from our absurdly long journey: Newark, NJ to Brussles, Belgium stop over in Uganda and finally Nairobi. The windows of the bar were large with some old worn metal fixtures on them, I looked around and I liked it. A mosquito (or two) tested my patience. We enjoyed some exhausted light conversation. We talked about the trip ahead and made some predictions. They told me how they had first met, in Nairobi, many years ago and I could imagine it being romantic. We were the last people in the bar that evening. I could’nt believe I was really there.

Sailing down the Avenue

2009-09-12T11:57:00.024-04:00

About 8 years ago I was an intern in the art department at a certain womens/lifestyle magazine in New York. I was their first intern. They were a new publication, all idealistic and clueless. And I was fresh out of art school, all idealistic and clueless. It was a terrible fit. The design and layout of this particular magazine is what initially struck me. I was in Barnes and Noble admiring its spare, well considered photography and quiet whispering fonts and my friend said, “Why dont you just send them an email and ask if they need an intern?” I love her for that advice. So I did, and there I was.

I was getting paid peanuts and my brother gave me the advice that I should not buy one new piece of clothing for this job, because I couldn’t afford it. And I wanted desperately to move out of my parents house as soon as humanly possible. So I was wearing some outdated baggy dresses that I was way too young and slim to be wearing with my long unstyled hair up in a clip from Duane Reade. Now I look back and I realize that I was in the dark about how New York really worked. I didnt realize that a new outfit was probably exactly what I needed in this environment to be taken seriously. Forget about practical, comfortable shoes, what I needed was something snazzy and overpriced. But I never got it, I just saved my money and shuffled around in those platform/elastic black sandle things that were in style a few summers before I was wearing them. And I worked.

The editor of this magazine was almost completely wretched. But she was actually an excellent writer. She was playing the part of a nightmareish woman in magazine publishing, and not very well. I saw it in her eyes, that she hated herself and deep down that she knew she was being an asshole. But this is how it was done. “When in Rome” she probably told her-fucking-self. She would flit around the office shouting absurd demands that turned what had been previously agreed upon, on its head. Everyone hated her but no one said a word. She would occasionally stroke people, just enough to keep them working, like dogs, irrationally, at this poorly oiled machine of a publication.

One day I was working on designing an article that was going to be in the magazine. This was a big step for me. Prior to this, I was cutting up mock-ups and making copies, incessantly. Well, the editor came around to look at my computer and she told me she loved what I was doing. Then the art director told me she also loved it. I went home that day a little bit proud. The next morning, the editor whooshed past me and went into the art directors office in front of where I sat. She closed the door. I heard talking but no words.

The editor emerged and the art director, sweet person that she was, had a red face and came over to me and told me to stop working on the article that I was designing. The editor decided she didn’t want interns designing the articles. I was completely dejected and went over and made another cup of coffee with hot chocolate mix in it.

Then in about 20 minutes, the editor came over to me and asked me in a tone that dripped with sweet evil, would I be a doll and go pick up her shoes from the shoe maker? She handed me the tag and some money. I said, “oh sure”, in fake sweetness and even faker ignorance, and I smiled. She made it very clear where she wanted me. So I had to make it even clearer where I wanted me. I put her money and her shoe tag on my desk. It was around 1pm. Then, in a brave and radiant fury, I walked out of the building and I sailed down 6th Avenue a few feet off the ground and rising as I got further from the building. and I never. went. back.

There are many many things I love about this story and one of them is that about two years later, the art director tracked me down and called me and asked if I wanted a position as an assistant art director there. I told her I was working in a genetics lab and going back to school now and thank you for the offer, but no.

Junk Drawers

2009-09-10T09:27:00.005-04:00

The photographs of Paho Mann. I like these junk drawers a lot, but somehow I want to see messier ones. It must be the Pig Pen in me.

The Specials

2009-08-30T10:23:00.015-04:00

I am almost always slightly uncomfortable when I hear the specials. The amount of time required for the waiter or waitress to deliver a loveless description of a sauce that they have never tasted, is always too long. If they know the specials by heart, they are often rattled off accompanied by a hollow nodding stare. This pathetic monologue has everyone on the edge of their seats. I find myself just wishing it would end {unless they said capers}, but trying desperately to look wide eyed and supportive. I want it to end. They want it to end. Just want to get back to my conversation, and the bread. But mostly, it reminds me of the thankless sweaty monotony of their job. It reminds me of the type of things they know by heart: something that wont be there tomorrow, they repeat it all night standing like a stoic jester at our stupid service. You overhear your waiter talking to another table. Saying all the same things, in all the same ways, they violate the specials bond you knew you never had. And if their memory fails, they have to get their notepad out to read from it, flipping pages wildly, right in front of you, they show their ass. And they suffer for it. With a pinch of humiliation over everyone at that point, surely no one is listening anymore. And when this calamity finally closes, I dont need any more time to think, because I already know what I want, and its something off of the regular menu.

Rune Guneriussen: Artist/Photographer

2009-08-27T22:50:00.004-04:00

From the clever and quietly playful portfolio of Rune Guneriussen

a link to my new post on the CUNY blog

2009-08-24T22:55:00.004-04:00

click here

P.S.-Joe came up with the title, its a Hobbit reference.

Modern Love

2009-08-22T15:42:00.016-04:00

At the Guggenheim there is an exhibit about Frank Lloyd Wright. One thing that is frustrating about going to the big museums in the city to see a show is that they are often maddeningly crowded. Then, you are forced to peer over some middle aged woman’s Chico’s clad shoulder to see something that was at one time groundbreaking and still may be presently moving. But to hear the talk is the worst. I didnt come hear to hear your banal adjectives and humdrum analogies. I didnt come to hear you praise novel thinking that now sits quaintly and safely in the past.

I came to see the work. and it got me thinking about the movement of Modernism in all of its forms. In art, literature, architecture, design, science and in thought:

So naturally I looked it up on wikipedia first. {The term encompasses the activities and output of those who felt the “traditional” forms of art, architecture, literature, religious faith, social organization and daily life were becoming outdated in the new economic, social and political conditions of an emerging fully industrialized world.}

and technically Frank Lloyd Wright was part of the Praire School, which is considered a prelude to Modernism and related to the Arts and Crafts Movement of the 1930s.

But mostly, Modernism in all of its manifestations was a rejection of tradition. And because the tradition prior to Modernism seemed to encompass more ornate, fussy and formal forms and ideas-Modernism was by rebellion, more spare and unaffected. and of course not only did Modernism mean that roofs were flat and so were canvases-but the prose of James Joyce and the ideas of Darwin were also part of the movement (at the bookstore at the Whitney they even sell a small paperback about Darwin!)

At the core, it begins with the idea of questioning what is, that then spreads wildly throughout many disciplines. It is part of our Zeitgeist so much today that its hard to recognize it as a cohesive set of shifts. but in retrospect, I guess it kind of was. Without Modernism there would be no graphic design and no primate evolutionary genetics!

what does Modernism mean to you?

{image of Guggenheim taken from The New Yorker, click on the first Frank Lloyd Wright for a link to the article}

No science without fancy, No art without facts

2009-08-19T16:03:00.000-04:00

A favorite passage of mine from Vladimir Nabokov who was a great novelist of the 20th century and also a professional Lepidopterist:

{The tactile delights of precise delineation, the silent paradise of the camera lucida, and the precision of poetry in taxonomic description represent the artistic side of the thrill which accumulation of new knowledge, absoulutely useless to the layman, gives its first begetter...There is no science without fancy, and no art without facts.}*

*excerpt taken from a book called {I Have Landed} by Stephen Jay Gould.

Oh, and thank you for coming to the new blog.

trove

2009-08-19T12:11:00.000-04:00

Please be sure to click on the new website {{trove}} that is listed under my favorites.

A dear friend of mine started an amazing, novel and adorable business that is very worth checking out. Click in the {about} section and read about her inspiration, Hebbie. Its completely heartwarming.

A Few New Blogs

2009-08-18T16:46:00.000-04:00

Be sure to check out two new blogs I just put in my favorites:

Louise Fili Ltd {the legendary type and logo designer who does elegant, sweeping and layered work. I almost forgot how much I admired her work, but then I didnt.}

Pixels&Arrows-->the super fun blog of a friend of mine who I used to have the pleasure of working with.

First Reactions from Kenya

2009-08-07T14:29:00.000-04:00

I have returned from Kenya and am feeling like my head is floating. I will have to write several days of blog posts to explain all the things that happened there. Today, since I am extra spacey I will just start with a few quick reactions:

totally and completely out of my comfort zone-which is a very VERY narrow zone I have realized, cold showers outside at sunset, working all day in the hot sun, being around people all the time, nowhere to hide, weak coffee, eating only carbohydrates, early rising. Felt *very* white Italian-american girl from New York goes to Kenya, felt uncultured as hell and like my normal everyday life is pretty boring.

Amazing and astonishing birds, bugs, plants, people, fossils, food and oh the LIONS! the lions.

I know everyone wants to hear the good things about the trip how everything was teeming with life and it was...but mostly I was operating exclusively with the constant buzz of a broken heart because Joe was not there to see it all with me. He would have loved it, much more than I even did. There, I said it.

anemones ranunculus tomatoes olives cheese chianti and perfect light

2009-06-25T11:52:00.000-04:00

This is what I think I want my life to look like.

(Via the small stump portfolio-click on the title of this post for a link to their site).

The Silence Experiment

2009-06-13T11:36:00.000-04:00

I spent the last two days of this week at the museum. I was looking, and I was drawing with a fine tipped mechanical pencil on light brown craft paper. My ipod was blasting calm fluttering tunes. Its been so long since I have drawn. Its been so long since I have really looked at something without the rushed and stressed semester steadily breathing down on me. Because of the stress and because of the slow drudgery of school related requirements, I had almost forgotten what it is that I like to do.

But on Thursday, I remembered.

I was looking at the skeletons of various mammals in preparation for my trip. On my trip, I will be going to Africa to look for fossils at a Miocene site that is approximately 17 million years old. The mammals that I was looking at in the museum this week were not 17 million years old, but they were sort of general representatives of the types of things I might be finding in the dirt.

I am very lucky to have the opportunity and the time to look at this material.

It was occasionally raining. Clear rainy day light was spilling in the large old window in front of me. I was at a table, alone. Pencil on paper gently explaining the outline of the shape. look. look. look. The quiet sound of drawing. The silence of looking. The intimacy of shading of gradual gradual gradual gradual shading. I make the drawing twirl because the bones do. I think the bones are beautiful. I said that to a classmate once, he left me feeling silly, naturally. But there was no one there to make me feel silly this time. Just me, my three pencils, a kneaded eraser, the poor deceased Potamochoerus larvatus and exactly how only I see it.

Talent Show

2009-05-27T20:36:00.000-04:00

What if someone asked you to empty out all of your talents into a bucket—all of the things that you can do well and that give you a peaceful pride, even tiny things that only you know you are good at. What if every last crumb or cent of your unique skills were no longer a part of you?

And then what if someone told you that you had to pick the thing you were very worst at—the thing that you are so astonishingly bad at that by about the 4th grade you already knew it wasn’t happening—and what if someone then told you that you had to do that thing. for a living.

This is how I feel sometimes. But there was no “someone”. It was all me.

CHANEL No. 5 ad thats pretty beautiful...

2009-05-25T23:37:00.000-04:00

CHANEL N* 5 (Extended) from Foro Dinastías on Vimeo.

7 Reasons to Remain Silent

2009-05-24T16:06:00.000-04:00

I dont talk in class, unless I am the teacher. As a student, I sit there with a sometimes knitted brow, occasionally nodding or sniffling a half-laugh if its called for... but I hardly ever, ever speak, unless spoken to. Apparently this is detrimental to my career as a graduate student, so I need to think about why it is I do this...so here goes...

I dont speak in class because:

1) I am not sure what I am going to say is correct or worth hearing.
2) I am probably wrong.
3) I dont want to compete with the talkers, I dont want to interrupt anyone’s rant, even if I think they are wrong and/or overly confident and/or absurd, which is often the case.
4) I didnt read carefully enough so asking a question may accidentally reveal this.
5) I am not really that interested in what I am learning.
6) I dont want to be judged, even though sitting there in silence does not totally absolve me of this I suppose.
7) I dont want people to know what I think.

Writing this list just convinced me again to remain silent... and I like this quote by Lincoln:

{Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.} -Abraham Lincoln

and finally I leave you with this quote from Liz Lemon from the show 30Rock, which I think I love even more than the Lincoln quote....{SUCK IT NERDS!}.

charm school

2009-05-16T23:32:00.000-04:00

We had a conversation about charm. Then, a few weeks later, feeling unsatisfactory on the topic, I started another conversation about charm and what it is to be charming. Things are still unresolved, which, incidentally, probably makes me uncharming, but here goes anyway...

Firstly, for some reason, I think of it as an adjective to describe men not women, but I think that might just be me.

Secondly, what is it exactly? Does it require one to be extraordinarily sparkly or just ordinarily lovely? should one be quirky? or mild? smiling seems key. should one be witty or reserved and attentive? a leader of the conversation or just a breezy delightful partner in a chat? shallow or deep?

or is this just stupid? is it an old Great Gatsbyish term that needs no explanation.

Anyway, do you think of this word as a pejorative term that connotes some unsavory agenda? or is this a compliment?

or maybe I will just know it when I see it.

**click on the title of this post to link back to the last post I wrote about charm in 2006.

self

2009-05-06T21:06:00.000-04:00

How do you separate your personal desires from what your parents want for you? What are we but responses to our parents issues? We either perpetuate their issues, rebel against them or turn them into something positive, or negative. But they are always there, hanging heavy like a soaking wet towel that never dries. Hopefully as time rolls on it becomes easier to distinguish ourselves from our parents shortcomings, but I dont think I believe that we can truly ever wriggle free.

P.S.-this is an old post that I wanted to re-post in case you missed it.

Reverse Birds

2009-05-04T22:29:00.000-04:00

Maybe its because I can recognize people from the back from a mile away...but I just love these Reverse Birds photos via {A Cup Of Jo Blog}...click on the title of this post for the images.

A Big Laugh

2009-04-28T21:00:00.000-04:00

I once worked in a design studio. The studio was open plan. So, it was just one big space that several artists rented out-all doing different things. So we were all in one space, eclectic, eccentric and everyone thinking they were more high-minded than the next guy.

There was a man named Harry who worked in the space next to my space. He was one of the most esthetically driven people I have ever met, but very very impractical. He once told me to clear the desk off of all of the papers and magazines I was working on, just so it would be clean. He was a minimalist. He was a minimalist. He often had a vase of white tulips on his desk. He loved Basquiat and sushi from the Food Emporium. He stole our cokes in the fridge. He never paid the bills. He walked around with no shoes on, just socks and even if I could not see his feet, I knew he had no shoes on, because he was suspiciously quiet when he walked. He talked on a portable phone and had it on speaker, but held it up to his ear. He sometimes tucked himself away in his boxes of organized clutter and set up a chair and slept. We followed the snore and we found him. He never finished anything but he had new ideas every day. He was the editor of a quarterly magazine, but it only came out once a year. He owned two apartments next to one another in the West Village. He once told me he hated money. He had a wife named Marion, but they weren’t married.

But most of all, Harry laughed. He laughed so loud and deep that when you heard his laugh, you wished you were laughing too. His laugh started with a drawn out {Ha}, then a pause, and then more {Hahahahah’s} followed. It carried through stairwells, through walls and doors and into reluctant hearts who he owed money to. Harry died this week and the world is less one very big laugh.

remove bouche

2009-04-27T21:28:00.000-04:00

There is a quote about women’s fashion that I cannot find, but it goes something like this. {Before you leave the house, when you are fully dressed, remove one accessory, or article of clothing}.

The idea here is to emphasize minimal elegance.

Well, I have taken this idea and applied it to emails and it seems to be serving me well.

I always write too much to the wrong people and so, right before I send the email, I remove one sentence. The one sentence that is a little too strong, a little too iffy or bold or soul bearing. There is always one.

tell me a tale of crazy

2009-04-20T22:21:00.000-04:00

Tell me, do you think there could be a connection between being paranoid and being creative? I say this because I am certifiably occasionally both. More one than the other I would say. and I know that both require connecting ideas in long strings or networks, things that normal people may not connect, and the next thing you know you are either talking crazy or talking eureka.

and why, tell me, is it that when a man in history is a little crazy he often gets the crazy genius title. Whereas a woman who is crazy is just all Zelda Fitzgerald and should just sink away with her intense grey eyed stare and wine glass shattering incidents, and be forgotten? Tell me about crazy women who have been lauded, and not just as a romantic curiosity, tell me.

Five Second Fiction

2009-04-07T00:20:00.000-04:00

You know how when someone uses a hypothetical person as an example of a point in conversation...when someone just invents a little fictional character to illustrate a story they are telling. {you know, the guy who...}

Well, I had a thought today about all of those five second fictions...lets get all those people together, all those jokers who never existed and who only enjoy only a second of our time. The ideas of people who have no purpose other than to briefly represent something, an act or a type of person, or a situation.

What if we let them enjoy more time in our thoughts, what else would they become, what kinds of things would they do?

float

2009-03-17T00:03:00.000-04:00

Today my bus was traveling at the same exact speed as a bird that was flying beside it. I was sitting inside the bus and I could see the birds little puffy body in perfect focus. It was a tiny shiny black bird with some flecks of iridescence. And it looked like it was just floating there.

Lets Pretend that Life is Long

2009-03-07T00:20:00.000-05:00

Lately, because of a certain tragic turn of events that are affecting a colleague of mine, I have been really REALLY thinking about how, as cliche as it is, human life is just so damn short and often sad.

But it leads me to the point of asking, if one were to truly embrace this idea that life is indeed an absurdly fleeting flash in the pan, and we might not be here for a lovely or upsetting tomorrow, what does one do with that realization?

Life is short so lets eat a lot of doughnuts, or sleep a little longer, or tell someone how you REALLY feel. Life is short so hug your dog, buy those shoes you love and get it with extra cheese. Life is short so do what you want in life and because there will (probably) be no one looking down on you and laughing at the general foolishness of your own life, you have to laugh at it yourself.

But, I think for me, because I dont trust myself thinking that it might be my last day on earth, which could actually be any day now, I am just going to pretend that life is long. I am going to pretend that life is long so that I wont call anyone up and tell them off, or send an email that gets me into trouble. So I wont get metaphorically, or actually, too drunk on life’s bounties...only to have the sun rise tomorrow on my big fat new headache.

25 things about me.

2009-02-02T09:24:00.000-05:00

On facebook there is this note going around where you have to make a list of 25 things about you. They are fun lists, but I have too many random friends on facebook at this point so I decided to save this list for petri dish, so only the {in crowd} could read it.

1. I know almost every word to every Beatles song.
2. My greatest joys in life are Joe, music, cut flowers, those fage Greek yogurts and good conversation.
3. I am not really sure about anything.
4. I cant identify with confident people, but I am fascinated by them.
5. I like the idea of cooking good, healthy, fresh food, but I dont always do it.
6. I cant decide if I am vintage or modern.
7. I am looking forward to working on a dissertation-my own little project, my own little idea-and if it does not happen I will be sad.
8. I loved being a cheerleader, and I dont care what anyone says.
9. Before I was a cheerleader, when I was very young, I was so shy that I used to hide behind my mothers skirt and never say hello to anyone.
10. I am still painfully shy sometimes.
11. If I dont drink coffee in the morning I get a very bad headache and cant look people in the eye.
12. Sometimes I think life might be meaningless and I am temporarily paralyzed by that realization.
13. I like to swim but I am kind of scared of water.
14. I hate winter with all of my heart and I dont know what to do about it.
15. I love polka dots
16. I can sleep longer than most adults.
17. I never finished the thank you notes for my wedding and it will forever haunt me
18. I dont think there is such thing as “having potential”, I think you are either doing it, or you are not.
19. I was told once that I have “an artists heart”, and I think thats pretty accurate.
20. I wish I was more articulate in english.
21. I can love and hate the same thing or person.
22. I have poor reading comprehension.
23. I probably eat too much cheese.
24. I am glad I have no sisters.
25. I dont know what I would do without Joe, I would be totally adrift.

poufy, puffy, displeasure

2009-01-12T21:02:00.000-05:00

I realized today why exactly I hate winter. Its not just because it is cold. Its not just because it is bleak or because its dark. Its not just because I want to stay inside all day under the covers eating brownies.

It is because I hate *hate* having reduced manual dexterity because of winter gloves and I hate *hate* having a compromised range of motion because I am wearing a puffy down coat. And I hate other people wearing puffy down coats, they take up more room on the bus. I am always slowly swishing by someone and we are touching each other, but neither of us feel it that much. This dull sense of the space you take up sets in. I like to know how far I extend in every direction and I like others to know how far they extend too.

I want to be streamlined AND warm, is that too much to ask?

PS-did I mention the static? my hair waves in front of my face like a devilish invisible someone is tickling my nose with a feather to watch me suffer ever so slightly more. its the cherry on top of the sundae of my discontent.

Dr. Little Miss Queen of Darkness

2009-01-01T21:58:00.000-05:00

Since I am experimenting with being a scientist lately, I feel like I am on the verge of becoming square. Some people think that because I am getting my PhD that I must be a good student. But I am really not, and I never was. I burned my report card in our driveway once, I remember my heart sinking in fear and sadness a bit when I saw the flame eat up my mediocrity. And feeling even worse when the report card was gone, but I still felt like a loser. And another year I meticlously cut out all the C’s, it created a swiss-cheese effect. I missed school many many many times-especially in 4th grade, due to “sickness”, that was brought on by I-didnt-do-my-homework anxiety. And then of course there was the time I climbed the Japanese maple tree in our front yard to escape having to get on the school bus to kindergarden. It worked.

Highschool was just a mess, over-fucking-flowing with bad feelings about school. Kicked out of honors freshman year, never to live it down to this damn day. Harassing the nun who taught us French. Every time she turned her back to write on the board-we moved our desks up just a bit-every-time-she-turned-around until we were right up on her and she was freaking out. I never really cheated or did drugs or anything like that-but I acted like I was bad ass and pissed off enough to do so. I think I drew on my sneakers once. I identified with Holden Caulfield, even though I probably never really finished reading the book.

And then of course there was Art School.

So now I am back in school, by some strange fluke of adult onset academic goodness. And I am feeling a bit like a Pollyanna, which I am not. I feel like I should get a tattoo or start smoking and wearing darker eyeliner and maybe become a self-loathing alcoholic. I think my voice should be raspier to reflect some kind of worldliness and experience in badness. I realized the other day that I still love the people who are super-smart, but who dont conform to what school has to give and who are, because they have some kind of advanced crazy mind, dark and brooding and screwed up. I still love people who are the most clever in a conversation but who get horrible grades. I like the tragedy of it and I love that song Little Miss Queen of Darkness because I imagine that they are talking about me, but I guess it will be Dr. Little Miss Queen of Darkness soon.

Welcome Back!

2008-11-19T21:37:00.000-05:00

Scientists believed these tiny primates, Tarsius pumilus (or Pygmy Tarsiers) weighing less than two ounces, were extinct until researchers recently found some in the mountaintop forests of Indonesia!

I Want to Want

2008-11-17T19:54:00.000-05:00

Nirvana is the supreme state free from suffering and individual existence, it is a state of wanting nothing. This is the ultimate goal for Buddhists, and I have finally made up my mind about what I think of this.

Have you ever wanted to be liberated from wanting something, either by getting it, or by just not wanting it anymore? and what about the four freedoms? what about freedom from want? I understand that the {freedom from want} is advantageous because the goal is to get.

But, I think wanting is action. Wanting is change. Wanting is innovation. Wanting is also the very first step in getting. In getting all sorts of good attainable things like grilled cheese and love.

So, I dont think you can reach enlightenment by not wanting. This is not to promote greed, you will probably never get all you want anyway. But I think that to want is to be alive. I want to want. Want is hope.

Beginning to see the light

2008-11-13T10:25:00.000-05:00

Last night I couldnt sleep and of course that led me to lying in bed thinking about everything, ever. I realized something big about my brain and how it works. This is one of the interesting parts about being a student again, I am revisiting all of my old academic weaknesses (and there are many) with an adult perspective and slightly less drama.

I have realized that things upstairs work a little different for me than for most. For example, when I read something it never really speaks loudly to me, its just an unconvincing whisper. But when I see something then it makes almost instant sense to me, and hearing it is an extra bonus.

All these years I knew I was a {visual person}, but I think there are different types of visual people. There are people who can picture something in their head and then either draw it, or just understand it in a three dimensional way. I cannot do this. I cannot draw something from my head. In fact, one of my problems with math is that there is no inner image in my head of the calculations, there is tumble-weed wobbling by, but no numbers interacting, no gears, just utter blankness. But if I draw it out (or count on my fingers without anyone noticing) I can understand it much, much better.

So, my conclusion is that the reason why I am a visual person is not because I have some advanced visual mind, its because I have a mind that cannot picture things...so I need to see them. Shhhh.

2008-11-10T21:15:00.000-05:00

{I am so glad that stupid ass is out the house} -spoken by a homeless man eating Chinese food on the 7 train tonight, regarding President Bush, of course. I chuckled on and off all the way home.

And above is a brilliant and beautiful illustration from the cover of The New Yorker, by Bob Staake.