Steve Jobs 1955-2011

So much has been said about Steve Jobs and so much more will be said in the coming days. And I know he had the capacity to be a difficult person but he had a drive and a vision like no other.

His attention to detail made you love whatever Apple product you owned.  While working as a Genius in a Boston-area Apple Store, a customer, a young lady I became friends with, actually kissed her 12" PowerBook as we finished the paperwork to send it in for Mail-In service and said, "Please, take care of my baby."  Do you know anybody who kisses their Dell goodbye? I didn't think so.

I still have every Apple product I ever purchased or was given as an Apple employee and though they may be non-functional or old, they mean something to me.

This feels like when I heard John Lennon was shot or when I saw Challenger explode on live television.

I had previously written on Les Paul when he passed away and I'll say this about Steve Jobs too: We've lost an American original.

He, too, will be missed.

One of my favorite things...

Hearing someone laugh at a Monty Python sketch they may not have seen before (sketch begins at 0:31)...

Yep - we're still here...

I thought about what I wanted to say and in almost every way, it came out mean. So I will just say this:

I may not be right, but if you believed that our world would end yesterday, you were wrong.

Honor - RIP

You have no honor if you can't follow through on your words...

You are not worthy of consideration as you consider no one else...

We will be better off when you are gone...

Added 5/22

And thanks for waking us up by bringing a prostitute into our home yesterday morning...

It is...

...so very nice to sleep with an open window...

Next year's here

The true sign that Spring has arrived - Opening Day!...

To me, no other diversion travels along the path of a year like baseball does.  Think of the names used to describe baseball during its season: Spring Training, Boys of Summer, Fall Classic, Hot Stove League (curiously, a term used to describe the one time of the year there is neither baseball played nor a league to even speak of). Baseball is my other calendar. I would like to think that if I ended up in a coma, woke up and saw the World Series was playing on the television, I would, at the very least, know it's late October. Then I'd reach for my iPhone for the exact date - let's hope I don't have amnesia...

This past winter, I tried to not pay much attention to the baseball press. I wanted to enjoy the upcoming season with the wonder of ignorance. Some news was unavoidable such as Derek Jeter's contract talks, my Red Sox signings of Carl Crawford and Adrian Gonzalez, the pursuit of pitcher Cliff Lee who ended up re-signing with the team that traded him away. Short of the major news, I avoided going online to Major League Baseball's website.  

While not completely successful, I think I will enjoy watching games where I will utter to friends, "Who the hell is this guy and where did he come from?" Last year was like that watching my Red Sox as injuries crippled them and many 'kids' were brought up to fill positions. Like the saying, I really did need a lineup card to know who the players were.

Now I don't have to try avoidance as today is the first day of Spring - my Spring. Still, I chuckled at my attempt at not keeping up with the Hot Stove League and it reminded me of lyrics in the King Crimson song "Indiscipline":

I was so involved, I didn't know what to think

I carried it around with me for days and days

Playing little games

Like not looking at it for a whole day

And then... looking at it

To see if I still liked it

I did!

Go Sox!

And now, for something completely different...

I came across this via one of my infrequent visits to a friend's page on Facebook...

Just brilliant!!!... Ladies and gentlemen, I present "El Coucho"...

It's getting loud...

What the hell is going on?

One might think that the End Times are truly upon us with all the calamity that we process every time we are are witness to recent news. Questions arise that are not being answered. Thousands offer their opinions. Yet we are no closer to even beginning to comprehend the chaos around the World these days. It would be easier to tune out because it is harder to labor towards even a basic understanding of who, what, where, how, and why? But even tuning out can be a challenge.

I think that there is one word that captures the essence of it all - noise.

We are bombarded daily with wanted and unwanted noise. Noise disrupts our ability to observe objectively. Noise can help us focus. Noise can be relaxing. Noise can irritate. Noise can - it can be all things. It can be anything. But it depends on your point of view.

Catching the latest headlines whether about the tumult in the Middle East, the disaster that struck Japan, the idealogues that were swept into office last November bent on proving they meant business (yes, they did), to the weather - thunder sleet?!

For my part, an imbalance of which I spoke to a friend last Fall is now being perceived past my personal sphere. And it is an imbalance that can be heard and not just seen. And maybe this noise is too much to bear - an irritation that causes people to snap.

Like those in the recent melee on a New York subway that started over, wait for it, eating spaghetti. Watching the video of the fight didn't, surprisingly, look different than any other scenes of disaster presented on the television or over the Internet. Just a bloody mess and in that visual cacophony, hope started to raise its voice. Then hope screamed back.

After a futile yet honorable call to reason, other passengers threw themselves into the middle of the fight once, first pasta, then fists began to fly. These individuals rose up to say "ENOUGH!" And it reminded me of the citizens of Wisconsin lashing out at Gov. Scott Walker and his heavy-handed, non-transparent attack on 50 years of progressive, pro-labor policies and laws. (More on this later.)

Does this 'sound' like I'm overreaching? Or is it an internal correction to achieve balance? Perhaps a cry for help.

I need something to drown out the noise...

REVIEW: "Kin"

"It's awful, isn't it? Getting to know someone."

You're not quite sure what you're getting when the house lights have been dim for the first few moments but it proves to not disappoint. Bathsheba Doran's latest, "Kin," revolves around Anna, an Ivy League scholar, and Sean, an Irish personal trainer, who become involved in a relationship that appears to be both inconceivable and doomed to fail. The rich supporting characters include: Anna's long-time friend, Helena, who is seemingly unhappy about Anna's success (Anna would tell you otherwise); Sean's mother, Linda, unsuccessfully dealing with a past trauma back in Ireland; Anna's father, Adam, a military Texan whose moment of vulnerability has a hold on Anna; Sean's uncle Max; Adam's confidant/possible lover Kay; Sean's ex-girlfriend Rachel; Anna's faculty advisor Simon; and Gideon, the North Carolina hunter Helena encounters during her commune with nature.

One would think that the subject matter can get weighty but there are well-placed moments of levity like Helena auditioning for the role of Helena in "Midsummer Night's Dream" and Sean giving his uncle cardio training. On the surface, all of the relationships are filled with tension because of some underlying damage that is revealed but there is a hope that persists. And it is a nagging hope that keeps you drawn in.

"Falling in love, a friend said to me, is like having someone poke around the dark corners of your house where you don’t want anyone looking." - Bathsheba Doran on "Kin"

The story unfolds as a series of vignettes over several years and the entire cast gets involved with moving the set pieces around. Sitting in the fourth row during the performance, I even got to experience an Irish mist - it was figuratively and literally cool!

What I enjoyed most about "Kin" is that as an audience member, you will know somebody like those portrayed and, so there, exists an immediate familiarity. You will also not mind that the run time is nearly two hours and that there is no intermission.

Seriously, you won't mind at all.

"Kin"
Director: Sam Gold
Cast: Suzanne Bertish, Bill Buell, Kristen Bush, Patch Darragh, Kit Flanagan, Laura Heisler, Matthew Rauch, Cotter Smith, and Molly Ward
Playwrights Horizons
416 W 42nd St.
Now until April 3rd

Virtuality

virtual |ˈvər ch oōəl|
adjective
almost or nearly as described, but not completely or according to strict definition : the virtual absence of border controls.
• Computing not physically existing as such but made by software to appear to do so : a virtual computer. See also VIRTUAL REALITY.
• Optics relating to the points at which rays would meet if produced backward.
• Physics denoting particles or interactions with extremely short lifetimes and (owing to the uncertainty principle) indefinitely great energies, postulated as intermediates in some processes.

DERIVATIVES
virtuality |ˌvər ch oōˈalitē| noun

ORIGIN late Middle English (also in the sense [possessing certain virtues] ): from medieval Latin virtualis, from Latin virtus ‘virtue,’ suggested by late Latin virtuosus.

I am a big believer in experience. Get yourself in that car, boat, plane - just go and see, smell, hear, feel, taste what the World has to offer. I think of the adventure involved in the journey to experience experience. I think back fondly to the day I foolishly attempted to go through the Louvre in three hours. But I did get to see the Mona Lisa, Liberty Leading the People and the Venus de Milo with my own eyes. As exhausted as I was, I was also thrilled to be in Paris attempting to speak French, sampling food, being invited to a party, and, simply, taking it all in.

For me, traveling was, essentially, my early life. Born in the Panama Canal Zone and spending a great deal of my youth in Germany, I never really felt I had a home and that I was destined to always be on the move. Maybe that's why I like driving so much. Then I moved to Boston, and even with the occasional move to different neighborhoods, I actually stayed for almost 19 years. Towards my final years in the Old Towne, I wanted to get on a plane again. So I hatched a plan to introduce two friends to each other and they would get married and since one of them was Irish, I'd get to go to a wedding in Ireland - and it worked. The following year, Paris, Madrid and back to London. Two years later after my move to NYC, my neighbor convinced me to go to Costa Rica. I actually didn't want to go but I have to tell you that zip-lining 80 ft. above a rain forest floor, riding a horse through a driving tropical rain storm, and taking in hot springs near an active volcano was an experience!

I'm going at length about this because going to these places and being there was/is completely visceral - that thing that can never be captured in books or online.

But the reality is that for many, if not most, that is simply something that will not happen. For whatever reason, not happening. So what is left is that an online experience these days is the next best thing if not better.

During another enjoyable brunch at Bar Tabac, I pressed the case I made above. However, a dear friend pointed out that a virtual museum tour may actually provide more of an educational or appreciative experience than you could by just looking at a work of art never mind actual access.

Yeah, I got to see the Mona Lisa. It's behind bulletproof glass. If you don't go first thing when the Louvre opens, the room containing the Mona Lisa becomes a mosh pit. Oh, there was the arranging of accommodations. There was flying to Paris after making the connection thru London. Packing. Or I can go to the link above or any other reference I can find online and learn much more about this painting without throwing one elbow while jockeying for room. Without leaving my home. Without losing my luggage!

Hmm... I enjoy the anticipation of a journey. I also enjoy learning something new or different. Of course, I grew up in a generation where you had to go out into the World (or at least the library). Now, the World is at my fingertips via a computer or smartphone - it's a different kind of journey.

The World is constantly changing - blink and you may miss something. But the way we experience the World is also constantly changing. There will come a time that technology will improve to the point where permission slips may not be required for a school field trip or making a journey will not be the production it is currently. But for now, just go...

However you choose...

Another one of my favorite visuals...

My regular commute involves taking the F train between Brooklyn and Manhattan. For those of you who do not live here in New York or do not frequent Brooklyn, the F and G lines rise from underneath Carroll Gardens for two stops before burrowing back under Park Slope.

I always try to stand in a particular door way (worry not, I step out of the way for those coming and going) in a particular carriage so my progress from the train to the station exit is brief. It also allows me to see planes making their approach to LaGuardia Airport when coming home to Brooklyn in the evenings at the first above-ground stop, Smith St.-9th St.

The station is perched on a very high trestle that allows for unobstructed viewing of Staten Island, the Verazanno Narrows and Goethals bridges - on the incline, you can even see the Statue of Liberty.

But the sky is what I look at.

Especially the lights of aircraft preparing to land. On a heavy traffic day, whether twilight or dusk, the lights appear as a giant string of pearls spaced far apart.

They too are coming home.