New York vs. Mobile Audio

Apparently New York is over it’s love relationship with mobile music players. Both the iPod and Zune have come in for some slagging over the last few days, if for different reasons.

First up, Microsoft are being blamed for disturbing Lower East Side residents with their beefed up boombox SUV blasting marketing music at 3am up and down the street. This was on the corner of Ludlow and Stanton, which as anyone who lives here knows, is not the quietest place in New York most nights. I used to have a friend who lived above that corner and I was amazed she could ever sleep – it’s crazy loud until 4am with folks partying, then at six the trash collection starts up and morning rush hour. Ouch.

It’s all too easy to bash Microsoft, but also this week we have to watch out for Apple. Their evil iPods are being blamed for two recent pedestrian deaths in Brooklyn, so a local senator is proposing banning pedestrians from listening to iPods or cellphones while they cross the road. Wow. That’s the most amazing piece of transferred blame I’ve ever heard (other than the whole Iraq war thing). If you want to stop pedestrians from getting run over on New York crosswalks then enforce the ban on drivers user cellphones! It’s amazing how often you can be crossing the road only to look across and see a car suddenly turning into you, with the driver having one hand pressed to their ear with their phone and the other distractedly turning the wheel. I’ve got three words for you idiots: hands free headset. At least taxi drivers have learnt that one, but even they seem to be less aware of pedestrians than before – plus I really miss the random conversations that used to happen to pass the time whenever you got a cab.

It’s high time we started to name and shame these drivers, who are supposed to be in control of these large metal boxes but who insist on risking lives by using cellphones dangerously while they drive. Maybe we could create a site where you can upload videos and photographs of these people driving with one hand on the wheel, the other on the phone. Or maybe if the fines/penalties were in line with the human impact, people would start to take notice. I look forward to a day when I can cross the road in New York again without worrying, back like it used to be in ’98 when I first got here.

Un-Caffinated Update

Well the ‘no’ caffeine kick has been going for over a week now and things are starting to settle down a lot more. The headaches have pretty much stopped now, which is very good news and generally I’m feeling perkier than before and finding it a lot easier to stay focussed. Surprisingly I’m not finding it at all tricky to get up in the mornings, but then I’m pretty much a morning person – as soon as that sun hits the window I’m wide awake. My favourite outcome though is that my stomach is being incredibly well behaved and not hurting at all, which it had been since I came back from England over Christmas. Huzah!

On the advice of various sites I’ve been keeping up with extra vitamins (especially B12), drinking plenty of water and generally being more healthy than usual. So this is in no way an inbiased study of caffeine withdrawal. For one thing my morning drink is still green tea with honey, which although having less caffeine it’s still only 1/4 of normal coffee. Also this week I’ve not been drinking at all, not even a little glass of red wine at dinner, so that could definately be affecting outcomes – although it’s a bit annoying that I’ve had more headaches since I stopped drinking than when I was! Plus I’ve been out running more than usual, even in this cold, slushy snow. Oh, and because I’ve kicked coffee I’m now way down on my milk intake – so who knows what that’s doing to me.

Next week: find out what happens when I only drink water and eat one grain of rice a day… Riiiight.

Nu Room

As I approach the end of my first week of no caffeine and no alcohol I’m still finding it surprising how many headaches I’m getting. In fact the headaches have been much worse than most hangovers. Hmm. Like this morning at 6am I woke up after a night out drinking cranberry juice and ginger ale to a headache the size of Manhattan. What gives? Fingers crossed this calms down soon, or maybe I’ll have to kick sugar as well.

Anyway, the lack of Saturday morning hangover – plus the gorgeously sunny New York late winter morning – inspired me into a home re-org. I’ve been wanting to move the book shelves out of my bed ‘room’ for a while now, to free that area up a bit so I can take portraits of people against the wall. So now that’s been done and we’ll see how liveable it is. And how many portraits I take. I’ve also been pretty brutal with my closets and Salvation Army will feel the benefit of that.

Oh, and aliens landed in Brooklyn. Most likely for the Williamsburg Galleries after-hours.

Well they didn’t really, this was such a boring post that I felt I should spice it up a bit with some WMD style lies.

Caffeine Withdrawal #1: The Revenge of the Coffee Pixies

As part of a general ‘healthy living’ week (aside from yesterday’s carb overload) I decided to stop drinking coffee on Monday, slowly easing myself out with a nice cup o’ earl grey tea. Tuesday morning – green tea with honey, mmm. Tuesday midday – complete exhaustion, could hardly move. Tuesday afternoon, the headache started, and boy was it a doozy! So after popping a few hundred headache pills I felt back on track and the evening went quite well.

I’ve realised now that was just the coffee pixies massing their forces for today’s second assault. Yowch. They don’t like it when you try and escape them… I’ve not been as sleepy today, but the headache is back with a vengence. So much so I got worried – until I read this site, where a whole pile of people list their symptoms. Dizziness, tiredness, crazy headaches and so on. Apparently knocking out caffeine severely lowers your blood pressure, which also explains why I felt really woozy the other day. Lovely.

The worst part is that this might go on for another 5 days or so! So apologies to everyone if I don’t seem more cranky than usual. Will give you further updates as they happen. Or don’t.

A Small (Minded) World

Speaking of cash rich stratas of society – last night at an interesting panel discussion about niche social networks I had the unpleasant experience of hearing someone talk about ‘A Small World‘, the private online community for those rich enough to aspire to own their own jet. Their goal is, to quote “Aggregate the world’s most interesting people with the world’s most interesting information”. Wow. I think they meant ‘arrogant’ instead of ‘interesting’, but I guess if your life’s interests are the latest Hermes purse and how to spend daddy’s money they knock yourselves out in finding new ways to do that. No really – knock yourselves out. Hard. Of course to the high rolling brands that this affluent clique want, this website is a godsend – so advertising and marketing dollars flood in there.

Now obviously this site didn’t create this strata of people, they just cater to them, but what’s fascinating is that this site, along with daily gossip columns, makes these people much more visible than before. Strangely, most people don’t like what they stand for – in fact in the presentation last night a noticeable coldness swept over most of the audience, full of those folks thrilled with the current ‘democritization of content creation’. I wonder how long before the proletariat will rise up and overthrow them? Or at least create an amusing video mashup on youTube that everyone watches… I can see it now, ‘A Small World: The Real Life’ – it’s the next Bold and the Beautiful.

Gentrification Wars Continue

The Washington Post has a piece on the rapid gentrification of Williamsburg, the part of Brooklyn I’ve called home for most of the last six years. It’s an interesting backgrounder for those of you who haven’t seen the effects on the neighbourhood, and a warning to other neighbourhoods that might soon fall prey to the war between those with artistic aspirations (trans. drinking all day) and people with more money than dress sense. Obviously nothing the artistic members of Williamsburg society say will have any affect on the incoming folks, but it’s sad to think that someday this area will be as devoid of real spirit as SoHo and NoLiTa.

To Do: Create Flow

I’ve been re-reading the excellent Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience again and I highly recommend you all do too. In it, author Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi describes his research into how people get into ‘flow’ states, that is states of enjoyable activity where you immerse yourself completely in what you are doing and stay deeply focussed. We’ve all done it at some point, missed our train stop when reading a book, sat down to do something then looked up and it’s the middle of the night and we forgot to eat and so on.

Mihaly argues that modern western society is full of flow destroying activities ripe with passive pleasure, such as television, rather than engaged enjoyment, for example knitting. These activities, while fun at first, lead to a longer term malaise as they do not involve us actively setting our own goals and following them through, which is core to the flow experience. Sports on the other hand are rife with flow, as they exist in their own world with strongly defined goals and excellent feedback to tell you that you’re there and getting better. Experts in the art and music world start to look for more complex experiences, moving from rock bands to classical or jazz, and then setting their own goals to analyse the music and deeply immerse themselves into that world.

What’s amazing about this concept is it works on a many different levels, you can even feel good about your day simply by writing a list of small tasks that need doing (goals) and ticking them off (feedback). Longer lasting, sustainable flow happiness comes from creating more complex experiences within overall goals, for example when you start taking photos you’re proud to create something that’s in focus, but as you spend more time immersed in the subject that is no longer sufficient – more complex internal goals must be met such as composition, lighting and the story being told.

Pigging Out

Happy Chinese New Year everyone! Now we enter the year of the pig, apparently a very prosperous year for all – especially for people who are little piggies themselves. And a big thanks to the Huang clan for another lovely communal soup-bowl cooking experience. Putting vegetables and meats from your plate into the boiling soup, then fishing it out, or possibly someone else’s food, a bit later is a great way to eat and share good times.

Snow Day NYC

The first snow storm of this winter season has hit New York. Can’t really say it’s that dramatic having just flown back from Montreal where it was near -40c with the wind chill. So cold your eyeballs start to freeze. Ugh. Still, it was fun on the subway this morning watching everyone bundled up interspersed with delivery guys with huge bunches of flowers (mostly roses).

Happy Snowy Valentines Day!

You’ve Got To Fear These Moves!

As mentioned the other day I recently succumbed to buying Dance Dance Revolution (DDR) for fun not profit. Having watched this little asian kid bounce around and score AA on a hard song I know I have some ways to go still.

On a different video note: this video of a fat kid screaming on a roller coaster is highly disturbing. I’m not sure if it’s the fact that he’s falling out of the safety straps on a fairground ride. Or that he’s almost choking as the straps go around his neck. Maybe it’s because the adult next to him is laughing the whole time, even after the kid cries out for help. Or maybe it’s the laughter track from the studio audience, enjoying watching this kid in abject fear for his life – not knowing if he might plummet to his death at any moment. Hilarious.