FURTHER NARCISSISM
About Joshua Newman
Cyan Pictures
CrossFit NYC

PRIOR GENIUS
Everything Archived
Autobiography (11)
Best Of (64)
Blogging (33)
City Life (66)
Cooking (14)
Crazy Theories (37)
Culture Consumption (28)
Dating (52)
Disclosures (51)
Entrepreneurship (42)
Exploits (55)
Filmmaking (59)
Fitness (18)
Friends & Family (25)
Guest Blog (5)
Jess (7)
Judaism (9)
Odds & Ends (55)
Podcast (3)
Politics (11)
Productivity (16)
Quotes (60)
Re-run (1)
Restaurants (10)
Science (7)
Style (21)
Techmology (9)
Toys (14)
Travel (33)
Troublemaking (16)
Trumpet (16)
Writing (3)

COLOPHON
Contact Joshua
Subscribe vis RSS


carve
Filed November 26, 2004 5:55 PM.

There are a number of basic guy skills - driving stick, holding liquor, hailing cabs, etc. - that any competent male need develop at some point in his life. Granted, some of those skills tend to atrophy a bit over years of disuse (as the clutch of my brother's car attests after each of my visits). But, like electro-shock therapy, all fall more or less into the 'get it once, get it for life' category.

Each, I would contend, is crucial. Which is why, at Thanksgivings past, I've always been painfully aware of one such talent I never had the chance to develop: carving a turkey.

In large part, the lack is due to celebrating Thanksgiving, year in and year out, at my parents home in California. There, my father, turkey-carver extraordinare, takes great joy holding the bird-slicing helm. And, to be fair, it's a well deserved post, a place where years of practice come together with his surgical profession and an outsized collection of carving accouterment: from carving knives and forks of all makes and sizes, to a professional chef's jacket donned solely for the occasion. Certainly, watching him work has given me a vague sense of the movements required to beautifully de-bone, but, as in so much of life, I'd long suspected that watching and doing were worlds apart.

Over the years, as the number of turkey-day attendees grew steadily, my parents would cook up successively larger and larger birds. This year, however, the combination of an all-time eater high, and the Jewish cultural 'let's cook at least three or four times as much as we could possibly eat' tradition, forced them to divide and conquer. This year, we roasted twin turkeys.

My father, recognizing the double-birding as a chance to pass along Newman carving finesse as the start of a grand culinary tradition, had me carve the second. In a play-by-play master class, he stood across the kitchen counter, directing me from drumstick de-jointing and dark meat chunking through breast slicing and wishbone removal. And, while I wouldn't claim to be ready for cooking channel prime time, years of observing and his live instruction allowed me to make fairly fine work of our de-feathered friend.

Now, placed bird-side, Wusthof in hand, I'm sure I could carve a turkey - at least as well as I could change a car tire or avoid asking for directions when lost on a long road trip. Another guy competency conquered with sense of manhood unscathed. Someone get me a beer.


good point
Filed November 23, 2004 1:53 PM.

A sign in the bathroom at Palo Alto bar Antonio's Nut House:

PLEASE DO NO THROW CIGARETTE BUTTS IN URINAL. IT MAKES THEM SOGGY AND HARD TO LIGHT.


quotable
Filed November 22, 2004 8:31 PM.

"Ambition is to the mind what the cap is to the falcon; it blinds us first, then compels us to tower by reason of our blindness."
- Charles Caleb Colton


jinx
Filed November 22, 2004 12:01 PM.

In a combination of Thanksgiving family obligation and West Coast business meeting necessity, I'm in California through early next week.

Even three thousand miles from home, though, there seems to be no escape: last night, at Palo Alto's Rose & Crown pub, I struck up a conversation with the people at the next table, only to discover that they, too, were New Yorkers on a brief Thanksgiving jaunt west, and that they, too, live in Hell's Kitchen, literally just around the corner from my apartment.

Clearly, I'm much less original than I'd previously thought.


an observation
Filed November 20, 2004 11:38 AM.

There may be many ways to skin a cat, but there really aren't so many things to do with the cat skin once you remove it.


hep cat
Filed November 19, 2004 2:58 PM.

On the corner of 50th and 8th, I was stopped by an old black guy asking for a light.

Sorry, I told him; I didn't have one.

That's okay, he replied, pulling a bottle of whiskey from his jacket pocket, then offering me a drink. I declined.

But how could I refuse, he asked, when he was drinking to the memory of Ray Charles?

He was a piano player himself, he informed me, to which I replied that I play the trumpet. That stopped him for a second; closing one eye, he looked me up and down, then asked: play jazz?

My affirmative reply launched him into a street-corner test:

q. You know Clifford?

a. Sure.

q. Who play drums with him?

a. Max Roach.

q. What they play?

a. Joy Spring, Cherokee, Bouncing with Bud...

q. What key Joy Spring in?

a. F.

q. Sing it.

And so on. After about ten minutes, he closed one eye again, gave me a second up and down.

For a little white kid, he observed, you know your jazz.

Then he whipped a napkin out of his pocket, scrawled down a phone number and address.

We jam here, he told me, every Sunday from ten at night. Ain't got no little white kids yet, but if you can play jazz as well as you can talk it, swing on by.

Oh I will, I told him. Without a doubt.


napster
Filed November 19, 2004 9:55 AM.

As the history of great men is littered with inveterate nappers - Albert Einstein, Napoleon Bonaparte, Thomas Edison, Winston Churchill - it pains me to admit that I nap rather poorly. It isn't that I can't fall asleep in the middle of the day, but rather that I can't wake back up.

Of course, at some point, I do awake; but, invariably, it's feeling far more tired than when I dozed off. My rare naps, then, are usually driven by extreme situations - after a particularly long night on the town, or following a work-driven all-nighter. Then, groggy and cotton-mouthed as a half-hour stretch of zzz's may leave me, I'm at least no worse off than I would otherwise have been.

There is, however, one other sort of nap I do take more regularly, albeit unintentionally: it is the post-workout pass-out. On occasion, while hitting the gym, I manage to push myself well past my rational limits. Returning home, I lie down for a minute while untying my sneakers, then open my eyes to discover an hour and a half has suddenly disappeared. This happened to me yesterday, and, as my eyes opened, I felt a bit like a computer must (if, indeed, computers feel) upon crashing and rebooting. Unlike my other naps - ones where I put myself to bed and eventually wake myself back up - these post-workout pass-outs catch me suddenly, then dump me back into the world, essentially the same, though with the exercise-induced cobwebs cleaned from my body and brain.

And it is through those gym-driven nods that I can, at least to some degree, understand and envy the great nappers. Surely, I would more than make up for twenty minutes lost to sleep if I emerged from each at a fresh mid-day beginning. Which leads some horrible part of my subconscious to secretly wish for a late onset of narcolepsy. If it is the sudden start - that capture by sleep, thoroughly unawares - that differentiates my gym-driven napping from my other less successful attempts, then perhaps as a narcoleptic, I might be able to nap like a pro.

Sure, unexpected fits of sleep might complicate driving, or lead to some awkward dating moments. But nobody said that achieving greatness would come easy. It clearly takes hard work. Apparently the sort of hard work you can sleep through.


movin' on out
Filed November 18, 2004 3:23 PM.

Despite normally being a quick and confident decision maker, when it comes to certain purchases, I am exceedingly over-careful. I blame this on my parents, who, before buying nearly anything, extensively research, unflinchingly field-test and compulsively over-analyze every single possible choice. To wit, they're currently replacing their bed - what should, traditionally, be a half-afternoon excursion - though something on which they've managed to spend the majority of the last few weeks. Having gone so far as to buy and return mattress candidates and to stock up on a vast array of bed-top paddings, by now, they're doubtless well enough versed to pen a collection of volumes on the particulars of pallet purchasing.

I bring this up in the context of my apartment search, which has so far taken me to look at nearly every single one bedroom in all of New York City. That's only slightly hyperbolic, as my viewing has taken me to nearly fifty potential replacements. After over-extended consideration, though, I finally managed to suck it up, make up my mind and sign a lease. A veritable bluebird of happiness, the new digs are just around the corner from where I live now. And I couldn't be more thrilled with them.

Except for one minor problem: my lease here ends, unextendably, December 1st. My lease there begins, inflexibly, December 15th. And while my attempts at negotiating that date forward did yield a free year's membership in the building's gym, it didn't budge the move-in date, by even a few minutes. So, for two weeks, I'll officially be homeless.

Wary of Franklin's admonition (that fish and house-guests stink in three days), I'm planning out those two weeks using as many friends' and family members' couches as possible, to spread the infliction of myself as thinly as possible. Even then, I'll doubtless chafe under the peculiarities of jumping into other people's lives and daily rhythms. My grandmother, for example, who lives down at 1st and 20th, has kindly volunteered her house for as long as necessary; due to her 5:00am wake-up time, however, I suspect my relatively nocturnal ways might literally kill me if I took her up on the extended offer.

So, with suitcase in hand, I'll be jumping from place to place, convincing myself that I don't really need the rest of my (soon-to-be) boxed and stored stuff. Which, I'm pretty sure I actually don't. And, even if I do, there's nothing like a stretch of urban nomadism to make me appreciate it all (sink-side suction-cup sponge holder! How I've missed you!) once I have it back.


gotham high class of '96 - part 4
Filed November 16, 2004 6:38 PM.

Even the interminable stretch of high school one day comes to an end; consider this the graduation post, then, before I go back to blogging as usual.


Becky Wong

Activities: Orchestra (Cello, 1st Chair); Math Team - Mu Alpha Theta (Award Recipient At State Competition); National Merit Scholar; Korean Club; Jason Priestly Fan Club (Vice President)

Next Year Will Be: Attending Juilliard while taking classes at Columbia Med School, in the hopes of eventually becoming a professional cellist and MD

Quote: "Who knows where inspiration comes from. Perhaps it arises from desperation. Perhaps it comes from the flukes of the universe, the kindness of the muses." - Amy Tan


Charlie Killeen

Activities: "Stewed Tomatoes" Improv Comedy Group (Founder, Leader); Staff Writer for "The Gotham High Daily Beagle" (Humorist); Bearer of the Spirit Stick

Superlatives: Most Eager

Next Year Will Be: Attending USC

Quote: "Cut. It. Out."- Dave Coulier


Meadow Fairley

Activities: Organic Hurray! (Founder); NA; Students for a Peaceful Tomorrow; Interpretive Dance Club; Terpsichord; Grass is Greener Society; Young Radicals; Eastern Star Girls; Key Club

Superlatives: Most Original

Next Year Will Be: Surfing in Costa Rica, deferring at UC Santa Cruz

Quote: "What a long strange trip it's been"- Grateful Dead


Doug Johnson

Activies: Left Right Wrong (Grunge Band, Drummer); Kurt Cobain Memorial Society (Founder); Magic The Gathering Association; Hackey Sack Lunch Circle; Key Club

Next Year Will Be: Attending the University of Puget Sound

Quote: "A mulatto/an albino/a mosquito/my libido/yeah" - Kurt Cobain


Ansel Levy

Activities: Varsity Swim Team; Chillin'; Maxin'; Relaxin'; Waxin'; Key Club

Superlatives: Most Groomed

Next Year Will Be: Swimming At Hofstra

Quote: "Fellas - ladies love a solid six-pack and chiseled pecs. And no woman can resist a guy who keeps the lawn mowed (it maximizes the visual appeal of your power drill)." - MAXIM, June 1995


gotham high class of '96 - part 3
Filed November 14, 2004 8:08 PM.

The party itself was an unalloyed success, but the yearbook signing goes on, online:




Brett Durst

Activities: None

Superlatives: Most Unique

Next Year Will Be: Fuck all you stupid sheep. You'll all burn.

Quote: "Death is a policeman/death is the priest/death is the stereo/death is a TV" - Marilyn Manson


Egon "Cereal Killa2112" Lafleur

Activities: Gaming; Anti-Gravity Society; Riflery; Collecting Guns; Archery;
Physics Club

Next Year Will Be: A professional video game tester; stockpiling fertilizer; planning something "special" for his former classmates

Quote: "I am a TREASURE HUNTER, not a thief!" - Locke (from "Final Fantasy 6")


Echo Glass

Activities: Purple Smoke Coffee Shop Poetry Series (Founder); Knitting Club; Classical Guitar Quartet; Blowing Glass; Installation Art

Superlatives: Most Likely to Protest

Next Year Will Be: Attending Sarah Lawrence

Quote: "My painting carries with it the message of pain." -Frida Kahlo


Thaddeous "Tad" Baker

Activities: FCP (Fellowship Of Christian Punks); Young Life; Revelationz (Punk Band, Lead Guitarist); Promise Keepers of Tomorrow; 2nd Presbyterian Church Youth Group; Outward Bound; Students for Pat Buchannan; "See you at the Flagpole" Prayer Representative

Superlatives: Most Likely to Win a Christian Music Award; Most Likely To Shoot An
Abortionist

Next Year Will Be: Attending Bob Jones University

Quote: "Yes I am with you always, until the very end of time."-J.C.


Chet "Quick Fingers" Jackson

Activities: Jazz Band (Trumpet, Fourth Chair); The Swinging Jellyrolls (Local Swing Band, Leader); N.A.A.C.P. (Member); Mustard Plug Fan Club (Charter Member)

Next Year Will Be: Moving to New Orleans to explore his roots (or working for his father's law firm)

Quote: "Black is the color of my true love's hair." - Nina Simone


gotham high class of '96 - part 2
Filed November 11, 2004 12:52 PM.

Flip the yearbook page, and see who's next:

Amanda Danford

Activities: Student Council (President); National Honor Society (President); Latin Society (President); French Club (President); Students Against Drunk Driving (Founder, President); Model UN; Debate Team; Student Ambassador; Gotham HS "Blade" Yearbook (Editor); Valedictorian; Cum Laude Society; Young Kiwanis Club; Rotary Exchange; Future Business Leaders Of America; Young Life; 4-H Society; Big Sisters - Big Brothers; Blood Donor; Resthaven Retirement Home (Volunteer); Sharing With Appalachian People (Volunteer); Girl Scout (3rd Degree) and Former Brownie; Key Club

Superlatives: Most Likely to Succeed; Most Likely to Join a Club

Next Year Will Be: Attending Princeton

Quote: "In the Bible it says they asked Jesus how many times you should forgive, and he said 70 times 7. Well, I want you all to know that I'm keeping a chart." - Hilary Rodham Clinton


Misty "Udders" Udders

Activities: Homecoming Committee (Refreshments); Puppies Need Love! (Founder, Sole Member); Jason Priestly Fan Club (President); Babysitters Club Fan Club (President); Pen Pals Of America; Future Homemakers Of America

Next Year Will Be: Attending University of Minnesota at Duluth

Quote: "A hug is a great gift. One size fits all and it's easy to exchange." - Elly Biles



Ari "Hey, Jew!" Goldbergstein

Activities: Prayer; Jewish Athletics Club (Founder); Making Gelt; Counting Gelt; Flaunting Gelt In Front Of Poor Goyim

Superlatives: Biggest Kvetsch; Most Likely to Hoard

Next Year Will Be: Attending Simchas Beit HaSchwarma Yeshiva

Quote: "A rich man who is stingy is the worst pauper."-Yiddish proverb



Christine "Chris" Massangail

Activities: Varsity Softball (Captain, 1st Team All-State); Women's Lacrosse (1st Team All-State); Indoor Soccer; LGBT Association

Superlatives: Most Likely to Go to the Olympics; Most Likely to Befriend an Indigo Girl

Next Year Will Be: Playing softball at the University of Maryland

Quote: "Just go out there and do what you have to do."- Martina Navratilova



Rufus Whitney

Activities: Students For Dole (Founder); Ayn Rand Society; Why Not Eugenics? (Vice-President); Elizabethan Society; Class Vice-President; Demolay; Key Club

Superlatives: Most Likely To Be A Millionaire, Best Dressed

Next Year Will Be: Attending Dartmouth

Quote: "I would like to electrocute everyone who uses the word 'fair' in connection with income tax policies."-William F. Buckley


gotham high class of '96
Filed November 10, 2004 10:20 AM.

See also: subsequent 'yearbook' installments two, three and four.


As promised, the first chunk of Gotham High's '96 yearbook. Go dawgs!


Chip "Jazz Hands" Goldberg

Activities: Drama Club (Vice President); This Box is Getting Smaller! (Amateur Mime Club, Founder); The Bowl Of Nuts (Acapaella Singing Group); Daddy Warbucks, Fall Production of "Annie"; Willie Lohman, Spring Production of "Death of a Salesman"; Hamlet, Winter production of "Rosencranz and Gildenstern are Dead"

Superlatives: Most Likely To Entertain

Next Year Will Be: Waiting tables in New York

Quote: "No day but today!!!" - Rent


Tripp "Cold Trippin'" Taylor III

Activities: Thug Life Hip-Hop Culture Society (Secretary); Math Team

Superlatives: Most Street

Next Year Will Be: Attending Morehouse

Quote: "I ain't mad at 'cha. Got nothin' but love for ya." - Tupac


K.C. Leviner and "L'il Stuey"

Activities: Hunting And Fishing Club; Survivors Of Incest Association

Superlatives: Most Likely To Be A Grandmother Before Age 35

Next Year Will Be: Working at Winn-Dixie, breast feeding

Quote: "If you see Sherman Meadows you tell that asshole that i'm not gonna leave L'il Stuey in a toilet at a Burger King bathroom no matter what he says. And my baby needs a daddy. Please come home - my momma said you can live with us." - K.C. Leviner


Amber Cocks

Activities: Cheerleading Squad (Captain); Drill Team; Homecoming Queen; Prom Queen; Fashion Club

Superlatives: Most Likely To Fuck A Baldwin Brother (If She Hasn't Already)

Next Year Will Be: Moving to New York or L.A. to model and be an actress and stuff

Quote: "If you wanna be my lover, you gotta get with my friends." - The Spice Girls


Donnie "Tay-Tay" Taylor

Activities: Special Friends Club; Special Olympics (Track & Field); Hall Monitor; Study Room Monitor; Bus Monitor; Inspiring Everyone

Superlatives: Biggest Inspiration

Next Year Will Be: Greeting at Wal-Mart

Quote: "I like sauce. I like sauce from apples. Sauce from apples is my favorite. It tastes good. It feels good in my mouth. Apple sauce! Apple sauce! Apple sauce! When I'm alone I can fly." - Donnie Taylor


go dawgs!
Filed November 9, 2004 11:49 AM.

Yesterday evening, I shaved off my beard. Then I shaved off my chest hair, donned a Speedo, greased down with vegetable oil, and stepped in front of the camera.

Sadly, that's not a joke. Nor is it my first foray into the world of gay porn. Instead, it's just part of the preparation for the Gotham Sugar Shack's last throw-down - this Friday, November 12th - before my roommates and I head our separate ways.

The party, in short, recreates Homecoming '96. Why? In the words of the Evite:

That was perhaps the finest time in our lives. Or anybody else's lives - in the entire history of the world. Do you remember? We were still buzzing from the excitement of the Olympics in Atlanta (how about the rhythmic gymnastics? Estonia was robbed!), and now that the autumn air had grown crisp, it was time to settle old rivalries on, as they say in South Bend, "one hundred yards of glory."

It was Jaguars vs. War Eagles. Clinton vs. Dole. Coolio vs. Seal. TLC vs. All-4-One. Brandy vs. Alanis Morisette. Hootie vs. the Blowfish. Our virginity vs. Jenny William's defiant, "I'm not drinking tonight and you'd better put that thing away" steel will.

Due to Evite technical glitches, a number of intended invites apparently never went out. So, we sent out a second. As that seems to have fared little better, if you didn't receive an invitation but think you should have, or if we've never even met but you'd simply like to party like it's 1996, a few further details from the PTA newsletter:

Come out and support our boys as they Rally against the Ridgeview Tigers. I don't have to tell you this is the game of a lifetime, as we've got the passing strength to really come through and treat this victory not as the decimation of an old rival, but the first hurdle on the road to the first state championship in 30 years. Let's make '96 a year for the record books.

I'm also pleased to announce that Misty Sherman will be serving as the Homecoming Queen this year. She's an honor student and a member of the FBLA, the FFA, and the FHA (looks like she's got her work cut out for her!). She's engaged to Brandon Mozinga, a super-senior who most of you know as the guy who drives the green Mustang around the Kwik Mart all afternoon.

The kids are having a dance and we need sponsors to come and administer "refreshments" so please bring something young and old alike can enjoy. And wear something nice--it's '96 for pity's sake. Throw those stirrup pants out and come in a nice new pair of Lee's acid washed jeans.

Which reminds me of the cheer that has always warmed my heart:

"Two bits, four bits, six bits, a dollar. All for the bulldogs, stand up....stand up and holler!"

God Bless America and Go Dawgs!!!

Gotham High School Football Rules.

Given the success of the digital version of one of our prior parties (The Hell's Kitchen Museum of Curious Deaths), over the next week, I'll be posting the Gotham High Class of '96 Yearbook. But, of course, it'll be no match for the real thing.

So, clear out your calendar. This Friday, November 12th, 10:30pm. The Gotham Sugar Shack. Be there.


eyeballing
Filed November 5, 2004 3:23 PM.

Having spent much of my life in photography (and now, in film), I'm anal about seeing with clarity and vision. Which is why, despite my prescription being repeatedly described as 'totally pansy' by those who really need their glasses, I wear mine all the time. I have since getting my first pair, in eleventh grade (bought, initially, to help me read the board from my customary back row seat, rather than force a move to the front).

To be accurate, throughout most of college, I actually rotated contacts in about half the time. But, since moving to New York some three and a half years back, I slowly drifted away from rotating. Perhaps it was my hectic bags-below-the-eyes-inducing schedule, the irritating grit of city air, or a desire for the faux-intellectual look a good pair of spectacles provides. Whatever the reason, contacts fell by the wayside.

I realized as much earlier this week, and have since been trying to work them back into use. And, by and large, it's been an excellent change. The only downside: I awake constantly throughout the night, suddenly convinced I forgot to remove the contacts before going to sleep, which might leave me hours deep in irreparable corneal damage.

I should, at this point, admit that I'm a complete and total hypochondriac. The combination of medical knowledge, vivid imagination, and general neurosis conspire to convince me - often aided by Google symptom-searching ("headache and slight fever? I knew it! Malaria!!!") - that my world is coming to a slow and painful end.

This is particularly true with contacts, due to a booklet I once read at the optometrist's on the potential dangers of sleeping in contacts not approved for 'continuous use'. In pictures and gory written detail, the booklet laid out the risks of 'serious eye infection' and 'abnormal corneal blood vessel growth'. It is the second that most plagues my imagination, as the line between vodka-induced harmlessly bloodshot and slept-in-contacts-induced abnormal blood vessel growth is a distinction admittedly beyond my abilities of accurate self-diagnosis.

Fortunately, unlike in the case of goiter, femoral hernia, or any of the other afflictions I might woefully cast upon myself, shaking slept-in-contacts fears should be rather easy - if I'm not actually wearing the contacts as I sleep, I'm fine. Less fortunately, my contacts-less vision is good enough that, in a darkened room without any distant objects to stare at, I'm often unable to decide whether I am, in fact, wearing them or not, at least without repeatedly poking myself in the eyeball.

Because my contacts are one day disposables, I've now stumbled upon a workable solution: after removing them, I leave them on my night-stand. Waking up at three in the morning, then, I'm able to simply look over at them, slowly drying out, to relieve my worries and put myself back to sleep. Gross perhaps, but certainly better than abnormal corneal blood vessel growth. Or, at least, better than fears of it. As is the case with most of my hypochondriacal self-diagnoses, I happily doubt I'll ever have the chance to experience the real thing.


on the internets
Filed November 4, 2004 12:49 AM.

I am an information addict. For all of my life, I've loved ideas: facts and theories, concepts and conjectures, knowledge and wisdom. In short, anything I can pack into my brain. Which makes the internet a dangerous place for me. I can - and often do - waste hour upon hour, exploring, reading, surfing from verbose site to equally verbose site.

This morning, for example, my carousing took me from fractal geometry to the biological evolution of morality, from the feng shui of desk layout to the history of electoral math. And, frankly, it didn't take me there quickly. Were I simply to click my browser closed, I'd easily free up hours each day, cross far more of my lengthy to do list.

But I don't. And, for that, I've always harbored more than a bit of guilt. Oh weak-willed self! Oh procrastinating spirit!

Today, though, in between surfing stretches, I set out to write the start of yet another chapter of Radical Entrepreneurship, the unorthodox business book I've been slowly and steadily piecing together over the past months. The chapter was on ideas, and, particularly, on how and where to find good ones. Though I'd outlined most of the other chapters to a disturbing degree, this one was - to put it mildly - still a bit vague. Where, exactly, do ideas come from? And what, if anything, can we do to make more good ones?

Pondering that question, I flashed back to a point made by David Gelernter, an eccentric Yale computer science professor who - among other things - revolutionized parallel computing, got Unabombed, and penned a book proclaiming the 1939 World's Fair as the height of world civilization. Gelernter, I remember, once pointed out that great ideas rarely come from people deeply entrenched in a single field. Instead, paradigm shifts depend on 'top view' - the ability to look down across multiple disciplines, to connect together disparate ideas that neatly interlock in ways nobody previously considered.

Starting a company, it's remarkably easy to get pulled deeper and deeper into the minutiae of operations, to look no further than the balance sheets and business plans piled up on desktop. Which, frankly, is a huge mistake. It's exactly that laser focus, that lack of step back and think things through with the new perspective of new ideas, that gets businesses into trouble, cuts off innovation before it even begins to take root.

And, with that in mind, as I pulled up pages on bookbinding and calligraphy this afternoon, for the first time I didn't scold myself for time wasted. I didn't even press to find links between the new thoughts packing my mind and any of my more day-to-day pursuits. I simply let the information sink in, confident that, somewhere, somehow, I'd be able to put it to good use.

As Da Vinci once observed, "men of lofty genius when they are doing the least work are most active." Despite the name of the site, I certainly won't lay claim to lofty genius. But least work? That, I think, I've got down pat.


no comment
Filed November 3, 2004 6:00 PM.

As comment spam has been raging out of control, and as, of the slightly less than three thousand unique visitors over the past week, exactly seven have actually commented, I'm heading back (at least temporarily) to the years of commentlessness that characterized this site.

If you don't like it, leave a comment.


whatever
Filed November 3, 2004 11:43 AM.

Four years ago, when America didn't get the President it voted for, I was angry with the system. Now, on the verge of America getting exactly the President it's voting for, I'm angry with Americans.

And only in part because more of them voted for Bush, despite the counter-endorsement of literally every single intelligent individual and organization (the neo-con Economist!?!) in the country and across the globe. But also because, even in an election that was a Really Big Deal, an election that most people conceded would be the Most Important in a Very Long Time, an election that featured the best funded, most heavily manned get-out-the-vote campaign on both sides, most Americans apparently couldn't be bothered to give a shit.

Observe the rough numbers:

WHATEVER wins again!

Next time through, it's likely Whatever will only broaden it's lead; as I said in my last post, this may be my generation's last gasp in the game of Big Politics, before they all transfer to the Whatever column for good.

Scary as that sounds, after a few days of thought, I'm less worried about it than I was before. Because, to be honest, I'm not so sure that Big Politics works. In an environment that's so deeply divided along partisan lines, one where the majority apparently don't care even vaguely about what's happening, and where the majority of the rest are willing to vote for an administration that proudly flaunts unwavering stupidity as its prime virtue, I have trouble believing that the major change we need in the world will be pumped out of Washington any time soon.

Which doesn't, for a minute, mean I don't think it can't begin elsewhere. If I've learned anything from running companies and spending time with countless entrepreneurs, it's that a small, passionate group of people who understand the power of outside-the-box-thinking, the leverage of technology, and the thrust of the market can get amazingly disproportionate things done.

There's strong precedent for it already in the political world. Solve homelessness? Common Ground will do it long before HUD. Quell soaring prescription prices without preventing drug company innovation? New PBM's have a vastly better chance than any current FDA proposal might.

So, as was the case until just a few short months back, I'll be reclaiming this blog from the realm of politics, giving up the guilty pleasure of shaking my fist at the heavens and the red states, to get back to how I've operated before, and how I'd suggest you do as well: when you see a problem, search out innovative groups and individuals already doing something extraordinary about it - they'll doubtless be thrilled to have your help.

And, of course, if you can't find a group doing something smart already, then start tossing ideas around in your own brain, looking at the problem from different angles, asking questions - smart ones and stupid ones. Sooner or later, when you least expect it - bam - an idea, and a good one. Then, regardless of who's sitting in the White House, regardless of how little the rest of America appears to care, start doing what it takes to make the idea a reality. By now, you're the only hope we've got.


money, where mouth is
Filed November 1, 2004 3:35 PM.

Before I go back to my happily a-political blogging life, I'm putting it on the line and calling the election in advance:

Kerry wins, 271 electoral votes to Bush's 267. Kerry picks up Ohio and Pennsylvania, Bush wins New Mexico and New Hampshire and 'wins' Florida in a dicey outcome that - because it doesn't sway the election - fortunately doesn't hold anyone's attention as legal battles rage on there for several months. Also, the popular vote pushes Kerry to nearly 52%, with no real effect except that pollsters everywhere start thinking that maybe counting cell-phone only voters and overseas absentee voters might be a good idea after all.

Am I confident Kerry wins? Fairly. Am I still wet-my-pants nerve-wracked about the election? Without a doubt. And only in part because I can only begin to imagine the creative ways in which Bush can run the country into the ground given four more years. Mainly because, for the first time in their lives, my peers have thrown themselves headlong into the political process, have worked tirelessly on this election, have staked their hearts and souls on its outcome. I'm terrified that - if it all comes to naught - it'll be the last time my generation really tries to make this whole 'democracy' thing work. I'm not really sure, long-term, what that disengagement would lead to, but I'm pretty certain it's even worse than four more years of G. W. Bush.