Borg jammin’

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The emptiness of kings

On the nights I race my single-speed black bicycle down Broadway from 41st to East 17th, I rule New York.

Not all at once. Not for long. This is a reign at risk with every squeaking spin of my wheels. But for sweet stretches of asphalt that sometimes last just shy of forever, I am made a king by an offering the city intermittently bears only after it has settled into its sleep like a shark to the ocean floor: emptiness.

There are times Broadway is so clear of activity, I freely swerve my bike from one side of the street to the other for no other reason than that I can. No one honks. No one screams. I hit no one; no one hits me. There are no pedestrians in my path; no delivery trucks stop before me. None of my bicycling brethren claims my space. I have the city; for once, it does not have me. I am king.

In this quiet space, I notice what I normally do not: the dark spread of sky resting atop the skyscrapers; the joy tucked inside an aggravating wind; the relief in my legs as they stretch and compress, stretch and compress. If the quiet lasts, even a few blocks, I begin to hear my breathing. If the quiet lasts, I hear more: the stilling of my mind. If the quiet lasts, I begin to believe: I need this space of silence. It is here, in a tiny kingdom of one, perched atop a throne of leaves coalesced in the stilling of the city’s clamor, that I become more than a collection of second-by-second reactions to those around me. For a moment, I am choosing a future, not dodging the present.

This moment always ends, certainly by Union Square. More often than not, it is broken by the engine whine of a surging taxi. I return to my clearly marked bicycle lane. I keep my wheels between the lines until the emptiness comes again.

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Life through my phone

This is my first post from my Android-powered G1. It’s the main reason I won’t buy a netbook; I already have one, and it fits in my pocket.

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Photo: A reminder about gum and the subway

A Loving Reminder

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Coffee with Nicolas Cage in New Orleans

In August, I took a trip to New Orleans, my home for three years of my life. Mr. Cage dropped by to say hello during an afternoon coffee break in the French Quarter.

Howdy, Mr. Nicolas Cage. How's the coffee in New Orleans?

Howdy, Mr. Nicolas Cage. How's the coffee in New Orleans?


Close-up crops after the jump.
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10 blogs I’m thankful for

1. influxinsights: “The goal of Influx is to provide ideas for brands that help connect them to culture and allow them to thrive.”

Last post: real-time creative marketplaces are a threat

2. Seth Godin: “…the most popular marketing blog in the world.”

Last post: The only holiday that really matters

3. boingboing: “A directory of wonderful things.”

Last post: Turkey-shaped Jell-O® Mold: 2009 Competition Winners (including David Byrne!)

4. picocool: “A precision dose of cool.”

Last post: The Importancy of Unimportant

5. Scientific American Observations: Opinions, arguments and analyses from the editors of Scientific American.

Last Post: Walls to fall: 6 ideas at the intellectual frontier, from business models based on selflessness to glasses-free 3-D TV

6. MIT Technology Review: Landing page for a number of blogs on science and technology.

Last post: Quantum Measurement Could Reveal Ion Flow Through Cell Membranes

7. Emily Chang – eHub: “A daily resource for new web/mobile services and applications.”

Last post: Parse.ly

8. BuzzMachine: “Jeff Jarvis, author of What Would Google Do? (HarperCollins 2009), blogs about media and news at Buzzmachine.com.”

Last post: Corporate punctuation finds its home

9. Recovering Journalist: Mark Potts: “Entrepreneur and consultant who works with media and Internet companies on strategy and product development. … CEO of GrowthSpur, a company that provides tools and ad networks to help local Web sites succeed.”

Last post: On Mobile Services, Broken News

10. Newspaper Death Watch: “Chronicling the Decline of Newspapers and the Rebirth of Journalism.”

Last post: Three for Thursday

And a bonus No. 11. Global Voices Online: “Global Voices aggregates, curates, and amplifies the global conversation online – shining light on places and people other media often ignore.”

Last post: Central America: Saying No to Violence Against Women

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Photos: Between Soles and the Earth

Individually:
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News-Pegged Poem: Routeless

New York victory

abroad, pulled into us.

passage now parade,

mundane journeys thwarted by cheers,

the truck bed a stage stacked with Yankees shirts,

the unknown faces our mirrored billboards.

this Broadway celebration cannot be crossed,

and the stars continue to close in

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Photos: The Light of Meat Sprinkling a Perpetual Path

More photos grabbed with my phone as New York rolled me around. First, and a first for me, an embedded flickr slide show, right after this likely obnoxious ad:


Then all of the photos individually:

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Still giving it a name: Language in Thought and Action is worth a read

This book I’m reading, Language in Thought and Action, explores the importance and power of words in shaping the lives of individuals and societies. It has been said many times before, but I’ll add my voice to the chorus: definitely worth a read.

One passage I came across this morning, about the power of names, inspired me. This is because part of what storytellers do is try to package and apply labels to chaos (the dominant state of affairs, Lars von Trier seems to say, through a self-cannibalizing fox, in the recent film “Antichrist”) in order to exercise control over it. Though I cringed at the word “control,” I stand by it. A story, understood one way, is a very long name for a human experience. By telling it, we give ourselves a tool to navigate that experience with less harm to ourselves and others, which is great for surviving to be productive the next day, though storytelling seems to consume a hard-to-define component of life in its execution (check out “Mediated” by Thomas de Zengotita).

Here is the passage from Language in Thought and Action, starting at the bottom of page 47:

The primitive confusion of word with thing, of symbol with thing symbolized, manifests itself in some parts of the world in a belief that the name of a person is part of that person. To know someone’s name, therefore, is to have power over him. Because of this belief, it is customary among some peoples for children to be given at birth a “real name” known only to the parents and never used, as well as a nick name or public name to be called by in society. In this way, a child is protected from being put in anyone’s power. The story of Rumpelstiltskin is a European illustration of this belief in the power of names.

Thomas Mann, in Joseph and His Brethren, gives the following dramatic account of the power of names, according to ancient Jewish beliefs:

[Joseph, speaking of a lion.] “But if he had come, with lashing tail, and roared after his prey, like the voice of the changing seraphim, yet thy child would have been little affrighted or not at all before his rage. … For knoweth not my father that the beasts fear and avoid man, for that God gave him the spirit of understanding and taught him the orders into which single things fall; doth he not know how Shemmael shrieked when the man of earth knew how to name the creation as though he were its master and framer. . .? And the beasts too they are ashamed and put the tail between their legs because we know them and have power over their names and can thus render powerless the roaring might of the single one, by naming him. If now he had come, with long slinking tread, with his hateful nose, mewing and spitting, terror would not have robbed me of my senses, nor made me pale before his riddle. ‘Is thy name Blood-Thirst?’ I would have asked of him making merry at his expense. ‘Or Springing Murder?’ But there I would have sat upright and cried out: ‘Lion! Lo, Lion art thou, by nature and species, and thy riddle lieth bare before me, so that I speak it out and with a laugh it is plain.’ And he would have blinked before the name and gone meekly away before the word, powerless to answer unto me. For he is quite unlearned and knows naught of writing tools.”

If you want a more contemporary example of this dynamic being played out, check out “Things To Do in Denver When You’re Dead.” If I recall correctly, the phrase “give it a name” pops up repeatedly in this film. Here is a discussion on IMDb about its significance.

Also, look at the debate around same-sex marriage. People on both sides vehemently battle over the meaning of the word “marriage.” This of course is not just a linguistic exercise; it’s trying to come to a conclusion as to what meanings the word can accommodate, and these types of structures shape how and why we live. In “Things To Do in Denver When You’re Dead” terms, there is a struggle underway as to what name to give same-sex relationships. “Domestic partnership” or “civil union,” even if they came with legal rights identical to those of a “marriage,” would carry a far different weight, no?

And here’s an animated version of Rumpelstiltskin. The real drama about the power of names doesn’t kick in until the 5:32 point:

Finally, the memorable talking fox in “Antichrist”:

Oh, wait, one more “and.”

Shakespeare supplied his own take on these concepts, too, with the cries of Juliet (“What’s in a name? that which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet”). Gertrude Stein gave an interesting follow-up poem (“Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose”).

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