Epistemographer

Was laid low for most of the past week, at least in a technological sense – I sent my Powerbook in for repairs to fix the fact that the lower third of the LCD screen kept flickering in and out. Luckily, the Center had a spare 12” Powerbook lying around, so I wasn’t entirely cast adrift, but the experience threw two observations into sharp relief:

1. Screen real estate truly does matter. I found myself wanting to spend less time doing computer work, to the point that I caught myself actively avoiding things I had to do, because the smaller monitor felt cramped, claustrophobic. When I did finally settle in and work, my thoughts didn’t flow as freely, as if there was a blockage in the figurative pipeline between my brain and the screen. This was particularly a problem with regard to a particular project I’m developing in Flash (there just wasn’t room for all the windows I’m used to having open, and I couldn’t see very many lines of code at once), but also held true for writing in general (including blogging, as several half-finished posts languished in wait).

2. The Apple Store is the new video store. In my dissertation, chapter 5 deals with the culture of the video store, drawing on Ray Oldenburg’s exploration of the “third place,” a social space that is neither domestic nor professional. In their pre-Blockbuster days, video stores often fostered an enthusiastic social interaction between customers and the “expert” video clerk behind the counter. I spent a few hours at the Apple Store in Clarendon last week, and I was struck by the similarities between that dynamic and the ways in which customers interact with the Apple employees – particularly the “Genius” behind the Genius Bar, whose job it is to explicitly fill the same role as the video clerk in early video stores. Different technology, but the same sort of enthusiastic talk, both of hardware and software, and the same feeling of community around a technology that defines a subculture.

So, I’ve been finding (as is painfully obvious) that I haven’t been writing very much here in the past few months. This is something I should’ve expected – when I used to keep a journal, I found that I wrote far less frequently when there were big changes afoot in my life. The bigger the change, the less likely that I’d feel an urge to reflect on it, with the counterintuitive result being that the biggest events in my life are represented by several-month gaps in its written record.

Needless to say, lots of stuff’s been going down in my life recently. All good things, mind you, but lots of stuff nonetheless, and the combination of the end of grad school with a new life and a new job in a new city has meant that my mind has been focused outward, rather than inward. Exacerbating the matter is the fact that I’ve spent a sizable amount of time programming over the past few weeks, and the commensurate tunnel-vision has been crowding out any urge to write.

I seem to be emerging from the tunnel, however, and am feeling the urge to stretch my arms and start doing some creative thinking again. Plus, I got a book in the mail yesterday, which ought to jolt me back into high gear (more on that tomorrow)…

So, my father (who lives in Ft. Lauderdale) has been posting on his blog about his preparations for Hurricane Frances – worth reading, if for no other reason than to remind us northerners why we should be thankful to be well out of the hurricane zone…

As the flood of new posts might indicate, I’m back in the blog saddle. No time to post much in the way of details right now, but an update will be forthcoming later tonight to catch you up on my past few months. In the meantime, I figured I’d post my notes (at least, the ones I took on my computer) from the 4S/EASST meeting I attended last week…

Moving Wednesday.

Sending dissertation to committee Friday.

[I plan to be back to my normal blogging self next week, with a snazzy new site design and everything]

Continuing our lame-duck, “let’s take advantage of NYC while we’re still here” campaign, Jenny and I woke up early today and trekked right back to the Public Theater to sit on line for Shakespeare in the Park tickets (this year’s show: Measure for Measure [Correction: Much Ado about Nothing (not sure what I was thinking here)]). The crowd was noticeably different from those that I’ve previously seen (and been a part of) waiting outside the Delacorte theater in Central Park…the line outside the Public Theater seemed mostly comprised of locals who live or work in the Village. We got there around 10:30 am and were maybe 20th in line, and when we got our tix around 1 pm we found that we’d be sitting in the fourth row, center. Sweet.

The production itself was one of the best stagings of Shakespeare that I’ve seen – nothing fancy, nothing that got in the way of the narrative and the language (though apparently the setting of early 20th-century Italy was supposed to connect with the Italian futurist movement, according to a throwaway comment in the program and a few random “manifesto” posters scattered throughout the entrances to the theater).

The cast was solid at worst, inspired at best, with particular standouts being Sam Waterston’s Leonato and the show-stealing bickering of Jimmy Smits and Kristen Johnston as Benedick and Beatrice (though I still slightly prefer Emma Thompson’s Beatrice, who was more sly and also at times more vulnurable, Smits’ swaggering Benedick was the best I’ve ever seen).

Naturally, it wouldn’t have been “Shakespeare in the Park” without at least one actor/actress who was never quite submerged in his/her part, and every time Dominic Chianese’s Antonio opened his mouth I couldn’t help thinking “Hee! It’s Uncle Junior!!”

All in all, an evening well-spent. Tomorrow, we continue sucking the marrow out of New York life: Restaurant Week…

First things first – if anybody in Ithaca is looking for a bed, futon, or any number of other miscellaneous things, I’m selling some stuff in preparation for the move to DC. Let the shopping begin!

Been back in the country for about a week and a half, and haven’t managed to fire up Movable Type and start blogging again…I think that while I was away, I got out of the mindset of blogging, and it took the better part of two weeks for me to start to get that urge back. That said, I’ve got a bunch of half-written posts that I’ll try to polish off in the next few days (if nothing else, it keeps me writing, which is a good thing in and of itself), so stay tuned!

(Also, photo galleries of Ecuador and the Galapagos are on the way once I get the last batch of scanned pics back from RiteAid)

Well, my half-composed post on the various commencement speeches I’ve heard in the past two weeks will have to wait, because I’ve spent the past 24 hours in a frenzy of packing and apartment logistics. The good news is that I’ve got a backpack packed that’ll last me for the next two weeks, a camera bag that’s jammed with an absurd amount of equipment, and a lease signed on an apartment in DC.

It’s kind of crazy, really – just over 24 hours ago, I saw a post on Craigslist that fit Jenny’s and my ideal specs to a tee (with the exception of the need for street parking, which isn’t a deal-breaker). I sent an e-mail, the owner called within a few hours, we chatted. Today, Jenny and I asked our friend Vidya (our local apartment scout) to go check the place out around 8 pm, and in the meantime the apartment owner e-mailed us a copy of the lease and the co-op rules. Around 9 pm, Vidya called and said “It’s great. Take it.” And so we have.

Come July 15th, Jenny and I will officially be shacked up together in a large 1-bedroom apartment at the corner of 17th and Church, just off of Dupont Circle. We’ll be just about two blocks from the Red Line, seven blocks from the Orange Line, and three blocks from a Whole Foods.

That settled, we’ll be catching a plane to Quito this afternoon, where I’m bringing nothing but clothing, cameras, and a copy of Darwin’s Voyage of the Beagle. See you in two weeks…

Massive amounts of work. Then, Jenny’s graduation. Then, more massive amounts of work. Finally, this past weekend, my own commencement at Cornell:

Not that I’ve actually defended, of course, but it’s close enough that Cornell let me walk in the commencement ceremony this year rather than wait until the next one. All told, I had one Girlfriend, one Mom, one Dad, one Father, one Father’s Wife, one Sister, one Sister’s Boyfriend, two Grandparents and two Quasi-In-Laws (Girlfriend’s Parents) in Ithaca for the weekend, which work out better and more smoothly than I could possibly have imagined.

More to come on graduation speeches, dissertation breakthroughs, and the irony that I’m traveling to another continent only to risk running into Donald Trump…at the moment, though, I need to run to buy a ton of film and a pair of trekking pants for my trip.