Labor Day weekend. It's truly a blessing -- gorgeous late-summer weather, a paid vacation day, a three-day weekend. The skies are blue, the sun is high, and there's a distinct "getaway" feel in the air that makes me eager to drop everything I'm doing and go somewhere, anywhere, for a few days. Since I'm working today and won't travel tomorrow, that leaves Sunday/Monday. But just as my mind begins to wrap itself around the thought of taking off for a day or two, I remember: everyone is going somewhere this weekend. If I think Sunday afternoon traffic is generally bad during the summer, I'm going to go out of my mind if I allow myself to get stuck in Labor Day traffic. In truth, this is one of the worst drawbacks of living where I do; there is no way around the traffic jams. When you're stuck, the best you can do is crank up the radio and try not to care. But I do care. I hate crowds, and I hate traffic. Not a particularly patient person in general, slow-moving mobs drive me mad. So where does that leave me? A day trip on Sunday? I could go hiking... along with half the outdoor-loving population of the area. Hmm... crowds in the great outdoors are even more annoying than crowds in the city. But maybe it won't be as crowded as I think. Don't most people go to the beach on Labor Day weekend? So then, the mountains should be a bit of a haven.
In the alternative, I could stay home. For three days straight... then again, no way. Even I can't bury myself in books for that many consecutive hours. To the sunshine!
Friday, August 29, 2008
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Musings on Music
Finally listened to my "Scott and Todd's Studio Sessions" album from my radio stations morning show, which includes tracks of fifteen live in-studio performances. In general, I'm not a big fan of recorded "live" performances, in all their dull and off-key glory, and such performances often tend to be especially bad at 8:45 am, when any singer in his right mind is still sleeping, not sitting in front of a microphone. But there are three tracks on this album that are so beautifully performed, I think I'd rather listen to them than to the original studio recordings (Five For Fighting's "Superman", Daniel Powter's "Bad Day", and Dave Matthews' "Space Between"). There's something to be said about the quality of a musician who can do such a beautiful job at such an early hour.
Monday, August 11, 2008
The Beauty of the Berkshires
I had actually forgotten the beauty and serenity to be found in the mountains. It must have been longer since my last foray into the country than I had thought. Walking along a mountain road in the midst of a blustery storm is an experience which offers a lightening of the spirit not to be found anywhere else, I think.
Off to Gracie Mansion for the rest of the afternoon. Oddly enough, I've never actually been to that part of Manhattan. Who even knew there was such a street as "East End"?
What I Learned Today: The "K" number listed in the title/description of a piece by Mozart comes from the complete, chronological catalogue of Mozart's works called the "Köchel catalogue" or the "Köchel-Verzeichnis", published in 1862. Apparently, Ludwig von Köchel was the first ever to succeed in creating a coherent, comprehensive catalogue of Mozart's works, which included 626 entries. 626. I know that Mozart was a genius, but 626 pieces? Was he trying to make the rest of us look bad?
Off to Gracie Mansion for the rest of the afternoon. Oddly enough, I've never actually been to that part of Manhattan. Who even knew there was such a street as "East End"?
What I Learned Today: The "K" number listed in the title/description of a piece by Mozart comes from the complete, chronological catalogue of Mozart's works called the "Köchel catalogue" or the "Köchel-Verzeichnis", published in 1862. Apparently, Ludwig von Köchel was the first ever to succeed in creating a coherent, comprehensive catalogue of Mozart's works, which included 626 entries. 626. I know that Mozart was a genius, but 626 pieces? Was he trying to make the rest of us look bad?
Friday, August 08, 2008
Speaking of Facebook
If I'm not careful, I may end up setting a record for number of times a person who doesn't care about Facebook includes mention of it in a single blog. Ah, well. It's not like they need the advertising.
I received a "friend request" this morning from someone whose name I didn't recognize at all. Rather than deleting the request out of hand, I opened the notification e-mail to see whether there was a note attached. There was. This person claimed to know me from not one, but two places. Apparently, we worked together for about a week three years ago, before I changed jobs. He saw me (and presumably spoke with me) shortly thereafter at the home of some (apparently) mutual friends in Brooklyn. Having absolutely no recollection of either of these events, I asked a couple of pointed questions in the effort to try to jog my memory (after having accepted his friend request, of course). It turns out that, not only did we work at the same company, but he sat directly across from my cubicle, on the other side of the wall. Nope, still no recollection. Apparently, I received a bouquet of flowers at the office that week. (Really? Someone gave me flowers?? Who????) And it would also appear that I was so happy to be leaving that particular place of employment, I "sang all week". Now, while I'm not generally in the habit of bursting into song when other people are present, it's not entirely outside the realm of possibility. There was a pretty high rate of turnover at one point; I have a dim recollection of the desk on the other side of the wall changing hands a few times. And the flowers could easily have been a nice-to-have-known-you or good-luck gift, if they weren't sent for some other reason. It's all plausible. I just don't remember any of it.
This leads me to conlude that my memory, which I've long known holds only vague impressions of past events, holds absolutely no impressions at all of others. While this would ordinarily be mildly disconcerting, the knowledge that a virtual stranger remembers things about me and my activities that I have no recollection of is downright unsettling.
Coincidentally (and this is where Facebook is disturbingly cool), I noticed that this person and I have a "Mutual Friend" in New Jersey. I asked how he knew MF, and he told me that his wife went to school with MF's wife (also a friend of mine). Really? Turns out that he and his wife attended MF's wedding. A wedding which I also attended. Did I meet this guy and the wedding, as well as at the office, as well as in Brooklyn?
I received a "friend request" this morning from someone whose name I didn't recognize at all. Rather than deleting the request out of hand, I opened the notification e-mail to see whether there was a note attached. There was. This person claimed to know me from not one, but two places. Apparently, we worked together for about a week three years ago, before I changed jobs. He saw me (and presumably spoke with me) shortly thereafter at the home of some (apparently) mutual friends in Brooklyn. Having absolutely no recollection of either of these events, I asked a couple of pointed questions in the effort to try to jog my memory (after having accepted his friend request, of course). It turns out that, not only did we work at the same company, but he sat directly across from my cubicle, on the other side of the wall. Nope, still no recollection. Apparently, I received a bouquet of flowers at the office that week. (Really? Someone gave me flowers?? Who????) And it would also appear that I was so happy to be leaving that particular place of employment, I "sang all week". Now, while I'm not generally in the habit of bursting into song when other people are present, it's not entirely outside the realm of possibility. There was a pretty high rate of turnover at one point; I have a dim recollection of the desk on the other side of the wall changing hands a few times. And the flowers could easily have been a nice-to-have-known-you or good-luck gift, if they weren't sent for some other reason. It's all plausible. I just don't remember any of it.
This leads me to conlude that my memory, which I've long known holds only vague impressions of past events, holds absolutely no impressions at all of others. While this would ordinarily be mildly disconcerting, the knowledge that a virtual stranger remembers things about me and my activities that I have no recollection of is downright unsettling.
Coincidentally (and this is where Facebook is disturbingly cool), I noticed that this person and I have a "Mutual Friend" in New Jersey. I asked how he knew MF, and he told me that his wife went to school with MF's wife (also a friend of mine). Really? Turns out that he and his wife attended MF's wedding. A wedding which I also attended. Did I meet this guy and the wedding, as well as at the office, as well as in Brooklyn?
Thursday, August 07, 2008
The Thing About Facebook
Not feeling the all-consuming desire to maintain an online presence that so many possess (as best evidenced by my rather ... [cough] lengthy absences from the blogosphere) , I don't generally feel any particular need to engage in online social networks of any kind. In fact, certain aspects of those networks -- and of all online presence in general -- leave me feeling decidedly creeped out. For that reason, I flatly refused to join Facebook for a long time. But earlier this year, I found that the following pattern had begun to develop in my conversations with friends who live as nearby as the Upper West Side and as far away as New Zealand :
Me: It's so good to talk with you! It's been ages. How are you?
Friend: I'm great. I've started dating super-amazing, fabulous person/gotten a new dog/bought a new house/dyed my hair green.
Me: Really? That's terrific! Do you have any pictures?
Friend: Of course. I posted them on Facebook. You HAVE to see them.
Me: I don't have a Facebook account. Will you email them to me?
Friend: [several seconds of silence] Uh... I don't know if I'll really have time... e-mail is such a hassle, you know? And what do you MEAN, you don't have a Facebook account??
Now, I didn't think much of it the first couple of times I had this conversation, but by the fifth or sixth time, I began to waver a bit on my hard-and-fast "no social networks" rule. So when a friend in England then told me that the only way I was going to get to see pictures of his young son was if I created a Facebook account (is there a name for this type of blackmail?), I caved. (His son is adorable, of course.) I felt great about my decision all afternoon. After all, this was just another way of connecting with my friends and family. What could be bad about that?
A few hours later, it all came back to me, in the form of a conversation with a New Friend as we walked across town to the East Side.
NF: You'll never guess who called me last night. It was so weird.
Me: Who?
NF: Mutual Acquaintance.
Me: He called you at home? That is weird. What for?
NF: Well, you know that his wife is head of HR at the company she works for? She received a resume that looked interesting, and she googled Applicant's name to see what the internet had to say about her. Of course, Applicant's Facebook page came up, and Wife noticed that I was listed as one of Applicant's friends. She knew that her husband knew me, so she asked him to call me and ask whether I would recommend Applicant for the job.
Me: So you got a call from MA at the request of his wife, whom you have never met, in order to solicit your opinion on the character of someone who blindly sent a resume to Wife in consideration for a job, and the only reason Wife even knew that you were acquainted with Applicant was because you were listed on her Facebook page?
NF: Yep. But it got a little awkward because I didn't really even know Applicant very well. I'd just met her at a party a week before and we had spent an hour or two chatting at the bar. There wasn't much I could tell MA that wouldn't make Applicant sound a little bit like a drunk... not entirely sure that she isn't a drunk... oh, well. I did the best I could. But it was weird.
Me: Yeah, weird... [wondering furiously how anyone could consider Facebook innocuous and mentally cursing every friend who played a part in leading me into that sticky web]
Since then, I have felt a deep appreciation for my participation in this Social Networking Phenomenon.
- Hey look, acquaintance in Boston just had a baby. Did I even know she was pregnant??
- Ooh, friend in Israel just started a new job.
- Young cousin still hasn't managed to choose a date for the prom. Tsk, tsk!
It's a warm feeling to be able to log into my account and in one fell swoop, get the down-low on several dozen friends/acquaintances/family members I'm not in constant communication with. Of course, that warm feeling is always accompanied by a concurrent feeling of guilt over not communicating directly with these people, either via phone or e-mail. (How did I not know she was pregnant?? It's been nine months -- it's not like there hasn't been time to find out!) Then sense kicks in and I remember that in our modern age of ever-expanding social circles, we know far too many people to keep in touch with everyone all the time. Our parents used to write Holiday Cards once a year as a form of annual catch-up, and that was often the only contact people had from one year to the next. Now, it's online social networking, which, despite its drawbacks, at least provides consistent, ongoing real-time updates. This is a Good Thing (though I still decry the loss of more personal -- and more meaningful -- forms of contact).
Then there's that grey area consisting of "Friends" who aren't really friends. Casual acquaintances, former classmates, friends of friends, colleagues. People we've met once or twice and never thought about since. People we used to date. Inevitably, at least some of these people end up on our Facebook pages. In one sense, it's kind of nice to see how things are going for former high school classmates. Then again, these are people I have not seen or spoken with since the day we graduated over ten years ago. Is it not a tiny bit strange that I know which radio station FHSC is listening to on her drive to work? Seems odd to me. Not harmful; just odd, and I can deal with odd. What I have a hard time dealing with is the knowledge that FHSC will be able to read whatever is posted on my pages. Of course, there is nothing overtly personal on there. But that's not the point. While I make no secret of which movies I've seen in the last month, it strikes me as a bit creepy that someone in Texas I haven't seen since I was seventeen is privy to that list. Again, not harmful, but still creepy.
Hence, my hesitance to make more than the most minor of forays into the online world. My worst anxieties about maintaining a blog were realized about a year and a half ago, when I met a Random Person from somewhere out west. During our conversation, he mentioned that he had a blog and promised to send me the URL, in case I was interested. I replied that I also had a blog, but rarely wrote in it. He asked me to send him a link, anyway, which I did. His response was immediate, and stunning:
RP: This is YOU?? No way! I started reading your blog months ago, and I love it!
Me: Umm... excuse me?
RP: I can't even believe this. You know, you should post a picture on your blog. Then I would have known immediately it was you.
Me: Umm... excuse me?
RP: This is so cool!
Me: Umm... uh... WHAT??????? Hardly anyone even knows I have a blog, let alone reads it!
RP: Really? So-and-so has a link to your blog on their webpage, and I clicked on it one day just to see what it was. Been reading your blog ever since.
Me: Really? Huh. Well... uh... that's... uh... nice. [weak smile] Small world, huh?
And there it was. I had always known, in theory, that random people would likely stumble onto this page from time to time. After all, Blogger has its own network. And this page is linked to other people's blogs/websites. But to be faced with the grinning acknowledgement of a stranger who lives 2,000 miles away, whom I met only by chance and whom I would likely never see again, abruptly twisted that theoretical knowledge into a shocking reality. Random people really do read my blog. And they won't always remain random.
Compared to this, maybe Facebook isn't so bad. At least the people who see my profile aren't random. I might not know them well, but I do know who they are. That's something, right?
Me: It's so good to talk with you! It's been ages. How are you?
Friend: I'm great. I've started dating super-amazing, fabulous person/gotten a new dog/bought a new house/dyed my hair green.
Me: Really? That's terrific! Do you have any pictures?
Friend: Of course. I posted them on Facebook. You HAVE to see them.
Me: I don't have a Facebook account. Will you email them to me?
Friend: [several seconds of silence] Uh... I don't know if I'll really have time... e-mail is such a hassle, you know? And what do you MEAN, you don't have a Facebook account??
Now, I didn't think much of it the first couple of times I had this conversation, but by the fifth or sixth time, I began to waver a bit on my hard-and-fast "no social networks" rule. So when a friend in England then told me that the only way I was going to get to see pictures of his young son was if I created a Facebook account (is there a name for this type of blackmail?), I caved. (His son is adorable, of course.) I felt great about my decision all afternoon. After all, this was just another way of connecting with my friends and family. What could be bad about that?
A few hours later, it all came back to me, in the form of a conversation with a New Friend as we walked across town to the East Side.
NF: You'll never guess who called me last night. It was so weird.
Me: Who?
NF: Mutual Acquaintance.
Me: He called you at home? That is weird. What for?
NF: Well, you know that his wife is head of HR at the company she works for? She received a resume that looked interesting, and she googled Applicant's name to see what the internet had to say about her. Of course, Applicant's Facebook page came up, and Wife noticed that I was listed as one of Applicant's friends. She knew that her husband knew me, so she asked him to call me and ask whether I would recommend Applicant for the job.
Me: So you got a call from MA at the request of his wife, whom you have never met, in order to solicit your opinion on the character of someone who blindly sent a resume to Wife in consideration for a job, and the only reason Wife even knew that you were acquainted with Applicant was because you were listed on her Facebook page?
NF: Yep. But it got a little awkward because I didn't really even know Applicant very well. I'd just met her at a party a week before and we had spent an hour or two chatting at the bar. There wasn't much I could tell MA that wouldn't make Applicant sound a little bit like a drunk... not entirely sure that she isn't a drunk... oh, well. I did the best I could. But it was weird.
Me: Yeah, weird... [wondering furiously how anyone could consider Facebook innocuous and mentally cursing every friend who played a part in leading me into that sticky web]
Since then, I have felt a deep appreciation for my participation in this Social Networking Phenomenon.
- Hey look, acquaintance in Boston just had a baby. Did I even know she was pregnant??
- Ooh, friend in Israel just started a new job.
- Young cousin still hasn't managed to choose a date for the prom. Tsk, tsk!
It's a warm feeling to be able to log into my account and in one fell swoop, get the down-low on several dozen friends/acquaintances/family members I'm not in constant communication with. Of course, that warm feeling is always accompanied by a concurrent feeling of guilt over not communicating directly with these people, either via phone or e-mail. (How did I not know she was pregnant?? It's been nine months -- it's not like there hasn't been time to find out!) Then sense kicks in and I remember that in our modern age of ever-expanding social circles, we know far too many people to keep in touch with everyone all the time. Our parents used to write Holiday Cards once a year as a form of annual catch-up, and that was often the only contact people had from one year to the next. Now, it's online social networking, which, despite its drawbacks, at least provides consistent, ongoing real-time updates. This is a Good Thing (though I still decry the loss of more personal -- and more meaningful -- forms of contact).
Then there's that grey area consisting of "Friends" who aren't really friends. Casual acquaintances, former classmates, friends of friends, colleagues. People we've met once or twice and never thought about since. People we used to date. Inevitably, at least some of these people end up on our Facebook pages. In one sense, it's kind of nice to see how things are going for former high school classmates. Then again, these are people I have not seen or spoken with since the day we graduated over ten years ago. Is it not a tiny bit strange that I know which radio station FHSC is listening to on her drive to work? Seems odd to me. Not harmful; just odd, and I can deal with odd. What I have a hard time dealing with is the knowledge that FHSC will be able to read whatever is posted on my pages. Of course, there is nothing overtly personal on there. But that's not the point. While I make no secret of which movies I've seen in the last month, it strikes me as a bit creepy that someone in Texas I haven't seen since I was seventeen is privy to that list. Again, not harmful, but still creepy.
Hence, my hesitance to make more than the most minor of forays into the online world. My worst anxieties about maintaining a blog were realized about a year and a half ago, when I met a Random Person from somewhere out west. During our conversation, he mentioned that he had a blog and promised to send me the URL, in case I was interested. I replied that I also had a blog, but rarely wrote in it. He asked me to send him a link, anyway, which I did. His response was immediate, and stunning:
RP: This is YOU?? No way! I started reading your blog months ago, and I love it!
Me: Umm... excuse me?
RP: I can't even believe this. You know, you should post a picture on your blog. Then I would have known immediately it was you.
Me: Umm... excuse me?
RP: This is so cool!
Me: Umm... uh... WHAT??????? Hardly anyone even knows I have a blog, let alone reads it!
RP: Really? So-and-so has a link to your blog on their webpage, and I clicked on it one day just to see what it was. Been reading your blog ever since.
Me: Really? Huh. Well... uh... that's... uh... nice. [weak smile] Small world, huh?
And there it was. I had always known, in theory, that random people would likely stumble onto this page from time to time. After all, Blogger has its own network. And this page is linked to other people's blogs/websites. But to be faced with the grinning acknowledgement of a stranger who lives 2,000 miles away, whom I met only by chance and whom I would likely never see again, abruptly twisted that theoretical knowledge into a shocking reality. Random people really do read my blog. And they won't always remain random.
Compared to this, maybe Facebook isn't so bad. At least the people who see my profile aren't random. I might not know them well, but I do know who they are. That's something, right?
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