Jak's Old Diary and Moldy Postcard Center

I'm getting "back on the horse" but slowly. Trying to figure out this weird new ftp client. Maybe I'll try to find a copy of the old one.

Meanwhile, new links, aus links, as the Germans might say, if their German wasn't so good.

July 18, 2001

Have you bought Kelly's book yet? No? Well, I hate your slacker attitude, but I must say, you're in luck. If you go now and buy a book from them (Gavin and Kelly are also the publishers), tell them I sent you and they promised to send you a special "dinged" copy, with the corner crushed by the box it came in! Go ahead, ask them if they have any limited edition "ripped covers." I bet if you mention my name, you'll get one of those without even asking! Go! Buy! See below!

June 26, 2001

Kelly's book is out! Go buy it and read it! There's a story with a character based on me in it! It's self-published and may be hard to find, but try clicking on the Small Beer Press web site. Get her to sign it if you see her at our wedding!

June 25, 2001

It's been a while, sorry.

I've been in Syria, as many of you know, where we had a great season at Tell Brak. We figured out some puzzles from recent years, we found a beautiful little stone figurine of a seated bear, and I got to hang out with some really good friends. We also had visits from journalists tracing Agatha Christie's work (she was married to Max Mallowan, original excavator of Brak) for a museum exhibit on her life at the British Museum, a television crew documenting a Japanese doctor/lawyer/adventurer who is tracing the route (backwards) of humanity's spread from Argentina to Tanzania using only his own muscle power (he bicycled through Brak), and prominent archaeologists you've never heard of.

Then I got back and it was graduation week. My parents came to town, I received my doctorate (how weird is that?), and my future in-laws threw me a party. Thanks Mary and Joe! What a great family to be joining!

Since then, I've been sitting around the house sweating. Lots of random things to take care of, most of them related to the wedding. So check out the wedding site for news on that front.

I'll try to be in touch more often.

March 17, 2001

I did it.

I handed in my dissertation.

As of June 7th, I will be a doctor of philosophy. Where does it hurt? Your moral reasoning? Could be sprained.

So now what?

Now I'm off to Tell Brak, until June 3rd. If you want to write to me, you can at:

Tell Brak Excavations
c/o Department of Antiquities
Hasake, Syria

No phones, no e-mail. Sorry.

See you soon.

March 15, 2001

Spring stinks

It's the Spring thaw and my dog is going crazy.

I know what you're thinking but Boo is "fixed" so that's not what's driving her mad. It's the smell.

I didn't grow up with a dog, and I never really liked dogs until I was thirty years old and met Boo, my fiancée's pet. And it turns out, I love Boo! I'm a grad student so I sit at home and write all day and Boo watches me and sits by me and will let me pet her when I'm bored. Boo is also my excuse (and responsibility) to go out for a walk every once in a while. This is much better than writing by myself.

Lately, though, she's been hard to control and running all over the place, ignoring my calls and pleas of "Boo!" and "Come HERE!" and "NO!" I was trying to figure out why she was so distracted and disobedient when a bus drove by.

Now, the buses don't change color in the winter, but for some reason I noticed the yellow stripe of the MBTA much more clearly today. And then I noticed the tender green leaves on some weeds in someone's lawn. And the colorful T-shirts of the high school kids. I unzipped my jacket. The excruciatingly slow colorization process of Spring has begun and soon we'll be surrounded by dazzling bursts of red and green and yellow competing for our attention. Of course, when I write "we'll" be surrounded, I mean "we humans," because Boo is colorblind.

But while I've spent the winter looking at a black and white world, she's had an equally numbing time. Boo is constantly sniffing around for the scent of other dogs, of humans, of squirrels, of fast food detritus. For five months now all that has been frozen, scentless, in a sheet of ice. For Boo, Springtime is not a matter of weeks, it's a matter of hours--it's today! Suddenly everything... smells.

I tried to "see" things her way on our walk today, and I realized I would have to imagine the visual change from March to May was like this morning's change from 32 degrees to 50 degrees. I also imagined what it would be like to inhale color.

I took a deep breath and let the sunshine burn through my closed eyelids.

I felt like a dog in springtime.

And it made me feel a little crazy, too.

February 28, 2001

A quote from the New Yorker (2/19 & 26/2001), by Karl Rove, George W's master campaigner:
"The tax cuts will make the economy grow. As people do better, they start voting like Republicans--unless they have too much education and vote Democratic, which proves there can be too much of a good thing."

February 26, 2001

I'm working on the wedding pages. As well as the wedding. I'm trying to get as much done and as much information to you all before I leave for Syria, March 19.

We just got back from Toronto where we had a fun (and productive) visit with my parents. Lots of wedding talk, and lots of Chinese food. Yum. It was good to see the Yangs and Huangs for dinner on Saturday. It seems like whenever we talk about the wedding, Julie asks, Uncle Bob is coming, right? Yes, of course!

My friend Hadas drove up from Buffalo on Sunday, and she looked great. She's a perfesser!

And Sheldon hung out, too. He's teaching grade two again this year, but apparently the Ralph Wiggums-like child has moved on to the next grade. Too bad.

February 1, 2001

The guitar and the dog, in order not to be separated from man, have submitted themselves with resignation to the worst alterations of size and appearance.
Andrés Segovia quoted in Dangerous Curves: Art of the Guitar, MFA 2001

January 29, 2001

Here's a question: Have you ever seen anything ugly that wasn't a person or something man-made?

There are ugly people, and ugly cars, and ugly clothes. But it's hard to the think of an ugly dog. Is this because we know human faces better than dog faces, and can see "imperfections"? Are there ugly dogs, or ugly trees?

I can think of some ugly dogs and ugly trees but they tend to be man altered breeds or topiaries.

I think in nature, really gnarly trees (for instance) are just "sublime" but never ugly. No ugly mountains, no ugly lakes, no ugly non-domesticated animals.

Is humanity the source of all ugliness?

Isn't the word "ugly" kind of ugly?

January 24, 2001

Hey,

I'm moving again. I'm keeping the cell phone so that number will be the same, but I'm moving across town.

So now I'm packing and all that again. It seems it never ends. Well, it's a good chance to go through some belongings and separating out the treasures from the junk. Here's a treasure that I'm afraid won't last except digitally. Julie's Valentine to me from last year. It's very nice. I don't remember what I gave her, but knowing me, it was probably nothing. Literally nothing. It's not fair, I know, but it's so far unfair in my favor that I'm trying not to let on.

Had a nice holiday season up at Killington, doing some wedding planning and tearing open obscene amounts of presents, mostly for the dogs. That's not a euphemism; most of the presents were for Boo, Rufus and Halley.

We were back at Killington for MLK Day and incredible skiing. It rivaled Utah. No kidding. Lots of thick powder, and I whooshed down the hill, mostly keeping upright. Julie, who last year ditched me to ski with her friends, was impressed and was happy to ski with me this year.

And in the land of cyberspace, Edie offers this non-title-lyric-song: Baba O'Reilly by The Who. Also, I've got a link to her company, City Access, to the left there, and you should check it out. Call them up and beg them to let you use the service for free. I have no idea if they'd let you, but it's worth a beg.

I hope you're all rooting for the Ravens this weekend because... well... I don't know anything about football, but it's cool that they're named for a literary reference. Support literacy! Root Ravens! (I think that translates oddly in Australia, but so far as I know, no Australians read this site.)

December 21, 2000

From: Baldwin Cheng

Subject: Absolutely The Number One Pop Song With A Title That Doesn't Appear In The Lyrics

Train in Vain, Clash

I guess not in chart terms, but in my soul. To me, Teen Spirit was the nostalgic validation of punk rock, a return to the heart of the matter. I think Kurt would have agreed.

BC

PS - We are THIS close (hold thumb and forefinger very, very close together) to becoming the music geeks in "High Fidelity". I was at first elated, then concerned, that the skinny balding record shop guy in the movie has the exact same Love & Rockets (comic, not band) T-shirt as I do.

December 18, 2000

I'm going for short and punchy these days. And more updates. Better?

In case you are wondering if my website ever generates any money (I was), the Google box has been used more than three hundred times! Only 2200 more uses and they'll send me a check!

And I was excited that the Amazon link has been used, but then it turned out that I was the only one who used it to buy anything. Doink.

So Liz came up with some good songs with title that don't appear in the lyrics. From the Beatles: A Day in the Life, Within You Without You and Revolution #9 (though they do say "Number 9". And they say it a lot. Until it really grates. And then you start hating Yoko). She also sent a list of like, a hundred Bob Dylan example but the only ones I heard of are Postively Fourth Street and Subterranean Homesick Blues. However, I have to say, I figured out the ultimate, #1, most popular pop song with a title that is not in its lyrics: Smells Like Teen Spirit. I'm not even sure the word "like" appears in the lyrics, and I'm certain none of the others do. This is what happens when someone leaves the Rolling Stone Pop 100 around at the gym. (Teen Spirit was #3 on their list, if you care.) This contest, which had the one entrant, is now officially closed, unless you can think of another good one.

Random e-mail that I wrote appears in print! Get your own copy of the latest LCRW. You can buy it on the web now, and tell Gavin I sent you. And get a copy of the New Year's poetry for the heck of it. Must support writers in Brooklyn, even after they become rich from selling a story to SciFi.com.

An awesome photo of earth that my uncle set along.

December 17, 2000

What a weekend. It's been all about holiday parties. On Thursday, Maria and Paul Graham held a great cocktail party at Paul's business, with a jazz trio from Berklee that was great.

On Friday, we went to a small going away party for one of Julie's colleagues. Lots of nice doctors, and I noticed that they were mostly married to other doctors, or health care professionals. Julie said this was typical and that people assumed that I was a doctor when she told them she was engaged.

Then we went to the Integral holiday party at the Fogg Art Museum. It was a fun affair with an eight piece swing band! Mostly we hung out with Troy and Claire. I have to say, I always feel really welcomed by the folks at Integral. A great bunch of people, and the best place to work part time that I can imagine.

Before we headed home, we stopped by Andrew and Julide's to celebrate their engagement!

Saturday, we ramped up and TRIPLE booked. The first party was at the Weber's, family friends of Julie's who have a beautiful house in Weston (or was it Wayland?) which was really decked out. I wore a suit, and Julie wore a sexy velvet (faux) mid length dress. It was that kind of party. People were standing around the pianos (there were two!) and sang carols. Really Christmas-y and New England-y in that John Updike-y way (i.e, WASP-y). Nice people, though I must confess that I felt like an intruder or anthropologist exploring another culture.

Then we went to Julide's party to celebrate her show at the Fogg, Sight-Seeing, which focuses on 19th century Western photographs of the Middle East. It's up til April and if you are in the Boston area, it is highly recommended. There are some really neat photos, and also a great curatorial job that helps you understand the different media, the audiences, and the attitudes that were imparted with these images. Michael Ramage kindly hosted a party for Julide at his house, and Andrew did a great job with the food, including lots of Middle Eastern food from Watertown and a cake with a sightseeing photograph on it!

We finally stopped by a third party, that Alex had told us about. Alex lived across the hall from me and Wilson and Krak when we lived on Hubbard Ave, and she knows Maria because... because EVERYBODY knows Maria. Anyway, her friend had a party and we went over and just danced around with twenty-somethings for a while. It was a great night, a fun weekend, and now I'm really tuckered out.

December 13, 2000

Okay, it's been a while for an update so I'll just jot down a few thoughts.

Been looking at weblogs lately. They are amusing, but somewhat insular. Someone asked me if this site was a blog and I said I didn't think so because it's more about my real life and no one who doesn't know me reads it. Right? Is there anyone reading this who doesn't know me? They are good (blogs are) for being bored at a temp job. Also, saves time sending people links to McChicken heads and all that. And I try not to do too much of that anymore. So maybe I'll add more links and this will become a.... Blog. Maybe not.

Pete was wondering if there were any songs that had titles that were not also lyrics (that were also songs you've heard of). We came up with three big hits: White Rabbit by Jefferson Airplane (Julie), Sympathy for the Devil (me), Tom's Diner (Julie and Barbara). Can you think of any more? What is the highest charting one (I'm guessing Tom's Diner)? Or best selling (I'm guessing the Stones)? Send more examples to me.

Have you noticed that I change the side links a bit each time I update? That's because I use my page as a temp homepage. Anywhere I temp (or if I go into school to use a fast connection), I homepage this page and then I can surf my regular haunts. If you have any regulars that are not represented, let me know.

Saw the Magnetic Fields on Thursday and Friday. Yes, both. Because they played all 69 Love Songs all the way through, with a bonus encore of 4'33". Intellectual jokers! Ha ha. And... they were awesome. They didn't play loud, which was a disappointment for some songs, but they played clearly. I mean, you could listen to and appreciate the words, and listen to the great musicians (some new arrangements on stage), especially John Wu and Sam Davon the cellist. I mean, Stephen Merritt was great but somehow managed to hide on his stool in the middle of the stage, and Claudia was awesome and cool and as lively as Stephen is dour, but the side guys really impressed me, maybe because I don't think about them enough. Oh and the guest singers were good, too, especialy Shirley. I'm sorry to reveal to Kelly that I honestly think the first night was better, but that's partly because I like Disc One the best, and also because they seemed more shy and awkward on Thursday. Although stephen Merritt did end with an amusing Tom Jones-like act to an electronic backing track. It was kind of like watching karaoke being sung by the guy who wrote the song. If they ever do anything like this near you (and people came up from New York and elsewhere to see them at the Somerville Theater)... GO SEE THEM.

Credit card update: Amex WAS calling me that day. I guess. It's still a little confusing to me, but you should all know that Amazon was not the one that leaked my card number. I even got a nice e-mail from Thomas Holland of Amazon explaining how secure their site is. Apparently my cousin had told him about my problem. Thanks, cousin! (I'm guessing Edie or Wilson.) So Amazon is safe, and Amex was nice about giving me credits for all the false charges. No $50 deductible. All in all, it was like having my foot rot away in Africa--unpleasant experience leading to happiness and new respect for a lot of the individuals involved. Except for the thieves. By the way, they bought lots of stuff from gas stations and pharmacies. Were they making crystal meth? Why did they charge things for less than $5? How do you buy something from a drug store without presenting your card? The mysteries still remain.

I kill banks. That little ivantage link on my page no longer works. They went out of business. This is what happens. First I was with Cambridge Savings but they bugged me when they raised fees. So I moved to US Trust (this was in Somerville, so about 2 years ago). I loved USTrust. Then US Trust was bought by Citizen's Bank.

Boston banking has become consolidated so basically there is Fleet/BayBankBoston which owns the Fleet Center (replacing Boston Gardens), the Fleet Pavillion (formerly Harborlights) and Fleet Present Shakespeare on the Park (formerly shorter name). It's like It's a Wonderful Life but we're all living in Pottersville. Maybe we should call it FleetBoston. Anyway, you would think that Citizen's, the number two bank in town would be like the upstart that you want to cheer for, like Pepsi to Coke or Church's to KFC, but really it's like Old Navy to Gap--the same old same old. So I ditched Citizen's (they wanted to charge me over ten dollars a month to hold my money) for the wonders of space banks--Citi/fi. Okay, it was backed by Citibank, the conglob that owns South America (if they ever foreclose, we'll have Citigentina, CiTchile, Cituador, all in CitiAm). But it was a fee-less Internet outfit that offered me a free Palm Pilot. I signed up. They were out of business before I got my Palm Pilot, but amazingly, it did eventually show up. That's when I switched to iVantage, which just went belly up last week and now I'm on Lighthousebank.com. Look out! Dump your shares! Here I am!

The sad thing is, they have all these bells and whistles when all I want is a POBox to send my checks and an ATM card. I'm pleased that they offer ATM rebates, and credit cards, and loans, and funny financial planning software and Palm Pilots, but, really, I could suck up $4.50 a month, I already have credit cards (and loans) and what person who signs up for an Internet bank doesn't already use Quicken? And I'll keep the Palm Pilot, thanks very much, but I really wish I could have just a stable bank. All these giveaways are killing the companies.

I know, I could just sign up with a local small bank or co-op or whatever, but I don't know where I'm going to be living in the near or far future so I thought internet banking was a solution to that (like getting a cell phone and not worrying about changing my number with everyone) but instead it seems like every few months I'm trying to change my direct deposit forms and tearing up books and books of unused checks (so much for going paperless).

November 22, 2000

I've decided to start a wedding page as an archive for the stuff I write about the upcoming nuptials, and a couple of extra pictures. There's a link to the left, and also on the picture of us.

November 15, 2000

What the Voters Want

The voters seem to want a divided government, and who can blame them, with those crazy extremists that the major parties put up as candidates this year. This election fiasco gives us time to consider how to give the voters what they want. I think I have it figured out.

George W. Bush is a nice guy, at least his brother says so, and his brother's the smart one. I think we should let George be President. But with concessions to the Democrats, too.

Al Gore is a great Vice President, he invented the Internet and reinvented government. W. should put him on the ticket and dump Cheney. Yes, let Al get that historic third term as VP. And what a team this dynamic duo will make! When they go to state dinners, W. can give foreign leaders funny nicknames ("Moammar! Ka-daffy Duck! The Big Mo!") and Al can whisper in his ear, reminding him whether or not we like them ("Is he an asshole?" "Big time!"). Perhaps this will keep W.'s libel defense fund to a minimum.

Joe Lieberman campaigned hard this year, and he's earned his job: a seat in the Senate.

Dick Cheney worked hard (well...) for his money, and he should keep all those Haliburton stocks. Back to Texas--or is it Wyoming?--or maybe he'll start registering to vote in Florida. I suppose it doesn't matter if you don't actually send in your absentee ballot.

The Congress is the tricky part. But if Maria Cantwell wins in Washington, we're golden. Then the Senate is split 50-50, with VP Al as the tiebreaking vote. The House will have a slight Republican majority.

The voters want a divided government and here it is. Split Congress, split Executive Branch--now all we have to do is ask Souter and Thomas to resign and appoint Tribe and Dershowitz to the Supreme Court.

Have you noticed that I'm getting a lot crankier? If not, read on.

October 23, 2000

An Open Letter

I have road rage. This may surprise you--it surprises me--because I am primarily a pedestrian and bicyclist. But it's true.

Last Friday, I was walking with friends in Harvard Square when a car on Eliot Street blew right past the stop sign at Mount Auburn. The driver's window was open so I screamed in his face as he drove by, "There's a stop sign!" and called him something like "You New York Times Political Reporter." He stopped in the middle of the intersection and stared in his side view mirror at me giving him the finger for a few moments until car horns encouraged him to move.

I was a jerk, I know. There's no way he left that encounter feeling enlightened about the traffic flow of Harvard Square. But I only had a moment and I said as much as I could at the time. I didn't get his license plate number or even the make of his white car, because I was blinded by rage. But if I had a way to reach him, I would write him this:

"Buddy, you were moving too fast through the Square. You didn't even pretend to slow down, so I guess you've never driven through. But you should know that that intersection crosses two one-way streets, one of which (not yours) has no stop sign. The woman in your passenger seat could easily have been crushed by a car coming up Mount Auburn, and you would have been at fault. If you don't know the area (and I admit the Boston area is notoriously difficult to drive), please slow down. You can't get anywhere quickly anyway."

Instead, I shouted profanity, made him mad, and probably more likely to make more mistakes. That was dumb. The funny thing is, I'm actually quite patient when I do drive. I guess without a ton of steel to protect me, I feel more vulnerable. And all these bad driving incidents add up in my memory.

I am a pedestrian and a bicyclist. So is your daughter, your grandfather, your neighbor, your co-worker. Please be careful.

October 19, 2000

The short version: Don't give your credit card numbers to anyone you didn't call.

The long version:
Last Thursday, I bought something from Amazon.com. The payment went as usual like this:

"Do you want to pay with your American Express card **** ***** ***** 02007?"

I did and pressed send.

On Monday, I got a call. Hello, Mr. Cheng?, said a woman's voice. I'm calling from American Express.

Yes?

We're afraid there may be some credit card fraud on your account.

Yes?

Did you make a purchase at Macy's last Thursday?

No.

To Amazon.com?

Yes.

How about to a gas station?

No.

Okay, don't worry, you won't have to pay for any of the charges you didn't make when they show up on your bill. However, we need to cancel your account and issue you a new card.

Okay.

I'm going to transfer you to one of my colleagues who can help you.

At this point, I was thinking about Macy's and gas, and especially, where the problem was in Amazon's security system. So I didn't say anything. I think because I hesitated, she said:

Or you can call this 800 number.

And then I started thinking, wait a second. That's right, I shouldn't just give her my number, I'm going to call this 800 number. And I was silent for another moment. Which prompted her to say:

Or you can call the number on the back of your card.

I thanked her and hung up. If I hadn't had my card on me, I probably would have called the number she gave me. But I had the card, called up Amex and got a new card.

The next day, I was still puzzled, and paranoid. So I called up Amex and asked them about my account. I was told that because it was canceled, I could only have yes or no questions answered.

Did I have a charge to Amazon last Thursday?

Yes.

Any charge to Macy's?

No.

To a gas station?

No.

Any charges yesterday?

No.

So this is what happened. Some thieves must have intercepted the e-mail in which I sent a payment to Amazon, but with most of my Amex account unreadable. But they did get my phone number and knew I had spent money at Amazon. So they called me up, and tried to get me to give them my account number. And I would have done it, too, if it wasn't for those damn kids! No, I mean, I would have done it, except the woman's timing was off, and took my initial hesitation for suspicion, thus fueling real suspicion. So, the lesson of this story is:

Don't give your credit card numbers to anyone you didn't call.

October 5, 2000

Last weekend we went to Pittsburgh. It was Amy's (Julie's sister) birthday on Friday and we went to visit Amy and her husband John. It was great.

They took us to a great restaurant on Friday night, a little hole in the wall, bring your own, pan Asian place. Bring your own sounds like a nice idea but in Pittsburgh a) all wine and liquor stores close at 9pm (about when our flight got in), b) beer "distributors" only sell by the case, so c) you have to buy six packs from bars. Strange. We had a number of good noodle dishes, and an eggplant appetizer that Julie described as "like Ethiopian food." Did you all try it?, she asked us. Once it was ascertained that we all had, she told us that she doesn't like Ethiopian food. Remember that the next time you invite her to dinner and she says, "It's... interesting. Reminds me of Ethiopian food."

Friday night was an excruciating spectacle of Amy opening up a cornucopia of presents. Julie was acting as gift courier for a few people, including their mom, aunt, and me, and she also "gifted" Amy with her own stuff that she had left in Boston. Then John brought out the best brownies I have ever tasted, with a cheesecake topping with fresh raspberries. Yum.

On Saturday, after breakfast (i.e. noon), we got out to The Strip, a street that used to be full of food wholesalers and now is still a foodie mecca. There was a Chinese grocer, Syrian grocer, Italian grocer, Greek grocer, restaurants, cafes and sidewalk food stands. After complaining about how much I had eaten at breakfast, Julie caught me eating some pasta primavera. What are you doing?, she asked. I didn't know. Was that free? I nodded, embarrassed. She knows me so well.

John and Amy are looking to buy a house, so we walked around lots of neighborhoods admiring houses. There are some great buildings in Pittsburgh and the prices can only be described as reasonable. There are also some huge, beautiful parks in the middle of the city. I mean, parks where you're lost and feel like you're miles from civilization. Really great.

On Sunday, we made a trip out of the city, to go antiquing. This led to a great discovery: none of us like antiquing. Then we played some frisbee, which was fun. Only, I accidentally kicked Julie in the shin with my heel as I was running by and she had to sit out for a while. ("What happened," Amy asked. "I was kicked," Julie replied. "I like the use of the passive voice," Amy said.) do you want some water? we asked. Do you want a pillow? She lay on her back in the middle of the field as we threw the plastic disc over and around her. After a while, I heard a little voice say, I'd like a piece of gum.

It was a nice weekend and I've totally forgotten to mention Rufus. Urgh. Rufus is the best looking and well-behaved golden labrador you'll ever meet. He makes me mad though, because he loves John best, and he's really Amy's dog, and he's bonded with Julie because she took care of him in Boston, and he doesn't think much of me. I mean, I used to try to walk him but he wouldn't leave the house if Julie was inside. Ah well, I do like him, but I'm jealous of him.

October 4, 2000

Is it just me or does it seem like the word "palimpsest" has become really popular lately? I see it everywhere as a metaphor of anything and everything. In case you've noticed it, too, I found this definition:

pal·imp·sest
n.

1.A manuscript, typically of papyrus or parchment, that has been written on more than once, with the earlier writing incompletely erased and often legible.

2.An object, a place, or an area that reflects its history: "Spaniards in the sixteenth century . . . saw an ocean moving south . . . through a palimpsest of bayous and distributary streams in forested paludal basins" (John McPhee).

September 11, 2000

Last week I hit a car.

I'm not a bad driver, or rather, my driving skills are irrelevant--I hit the car while riding my bike to work. I was travelling at about 15-18 miles an hour (I know because there is a sign that flashes your speed near the school about 50 yards from my accident), when a car on a street on my right, impatient to turn left, pulled around another car waiting to turn left and screeched into the intersection.

Luckily I had time to brake, hard, and ended up just tapping the left front fender of the impatient driver and jumping off my bike. Person: okay. Bike: okay. Car: fine (although I noticed it had suffered damage in previous accidents).

It occurred to me that if I had left my house 5 seconds earlier I would have been in front of that car, it would have pushed me off my bike, into the street and on-coming traffic and I probably would not have made it to work that day.

I know that bikes are scary to drive around. I know no one really wants to hit a bike. And I know that on a bike I don't have a big silhouette or a noisy engine to warn people that I'm coming.

This was the third accident I've had in about three years. Is that a lot? Am I a bad bicyclist? I'm not sure about the first question and as for the second-it depends on how you judge fault, I suppose. About three years ago I was living in New York and riding down West 86th Street when a double-parked car opened his door suddenly, clipping my knee and I somersaulted onto the road. Earlier this summer, in my present home of Cambridge, MA (motto: the bad drivers are across the river), a car stopped to allow me across a crosswalk and as I glided by this friendly motorist, in a minivan, a driver in the next lane slammed on her brakes and avoided injuring me, although I needed to get a new wheel for my bike (this happened, by the way, just on the other side of a bridge with drivers coming from Boston).

So am I a bad cyclist? In the New York incident, the JERK was DOUBLE PARKED and flung his door open. I have some responsibility in avoiding car doors, I know, but not on a major crosstown street where the offending car is already squeezing me towards the traffic. Plus, Perry Mason would point out that if the door hit my knee and not my handlebar, it means he was opening the door as I pulled beside him, without any warning to me. I blame him.

At the bridge, the problem was that the van blocked the sightline between me and the second car. I should have proceeded with more caution, and the car should have suspected something was up when the van stopped at the crosswalk. Still, my life was at stake, so I should have been more careful. Mea culpa.

Last week, I have no doubt that impatience drove the offending car into my way, but strangely enough, it was the passenger who had been urging the driver to swerve around the more cautious motorist who was impeding their haste. Someone in the car was at fault there.

Whew. Two out of three, the other guy's fault. Do I feel better? No, because in every case I could have been severely injured, if not killed, and the car risked needing a car wash to get the big red splotch off of its paint.

So I've taken to yelling a lot. It's not road rage, it's self preservation. I didn't have time to say anything coherent in any of my accidents, but I did manage a "HEY!" last week. But, when I see erratic drivers, I shout at them and hope they remember what I said the next time we meet. The two most common shouts are "Signal!" and, number two with a bullet, "Get off the phone!" On the subject of phones, everyone who has a cell phone (that includes me) should be required to read the stories at the CarTalk site and remember that the operative question is not, am I a decent driver when I talk on the phone? But, rather, Do people think I'm a jerk? Don't be a jerk.

Riding my bike around town, I feel healthy, and I'm glad to keep another car off the road and another body off the rush hour subway commute. I know the risks, which is why I wear a helmet. I know that bikes are scary to drive around. I know no one really wants to hit a bike. And I know that I don't have a big silhouette or a noisy engine to warn people that I'm coming, but get used to turning your head and looking over your shoulder because more silent vehicles--electric cars--are coming.

March 16, 2000

Big gap in production time here. I was figuring there was no point in updating the web site as the world was ending but here we still are. Whaddaya wanna know?

I met a nice girl in September. September 1998. We hung out a bit and then didn't, and then I met her again in late October 1999. And we've been hanging out a lot more. Her name is Julie Crosson, or "Doctor Julie" for short. It's not actually shorter, I know, but neither is saying the "Gee Double You Bee" and people say that all the time, at least, they do in New York around rush hour. Right. We met in a bar, Julie told someone recently, and we did, the Wonderbar on North Harvard Street in Allston. As it happens, I was with Maria Daniels and she was planning on meeting Julie, so it wasn't a total coincidence.

Then we (Kelly, Gavin and I) got evicted in September, moved to a new place across the river in Brighton, and had a housewarming open house. And Dr. Julie came. That's when I found out she could play guitar. And then she invited me to play football, we saw a movie, you get the idea. It's been terrific and I'm super happy.

Yes, but what KIND of doctor? you ask. Specialized in Internal Medicine, working as a General Practictioner at Dorchester House, treating mainly immigrants and the poor. How cool is that?

But, you say, what kind of person is this Dr. Julie? (By the way, no one actually calls her Dr. Julie to her face, just in case you meet her.) The answer is, the opposite of me! Really. Check this out: she's dog, I'm cat; she's an M.D., I'm getting Ph.D.; she's outdoorsy, I'm urban; she's the oldest sibling, I'm the youngest; she's worked and traveled a lot in the New World, I work and travel in the Old World; she reads the New England Journal of Medicine, I read Entertainment Weekly; she's a Boston native, I'm a transplant; she's blond, I'm not; plus she's responsible, has a job and steady income, and is smart, charming and energetic, I...uh...I have a web site that I update every year.

It's kind of odd, and almost like we've lived our lives on two different planets (only one of us can identify any given song on the radio). Still, it's great to learn about, and learn to do, so many new things. Heck, I even really like her dog, Boo, a slightly hyper border collie/shepherdie mix, and her nephdog (sister's dog), Rufus, a wise looking golden labrador.

So that's the biggest news. Meanwhile, I've been cranking away at my dissertation. I have a complete draft of it, and my advisor has seen about half of it. The rest of it will be finished this summer and I'll get a degree in November. And then I'll be Doctor Jack, for short.

For New Year's some friends decided that I should host a party. Nice, eh? But it worked out well. People came over and brought (and drank) lots of champagne and Gavin cleverly instituted a ban on the television and we went out at midnight and shouted and came back and danced and when we woke up there were people sleeping in every room of the house. Everyone brought great food, including homemade boreks (Guzel, Hadas!) and sushi (Elio is Ichiban!). And I'll toot my own horn and say that my favorite part of the night was when I made everyone read poems they had written about the past or future. Most were limericks or haikus, and all were either hilarious, touching or both. Gavin is publishing them in a special edition of Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet, his literary 'zine which has published stories and writers that have won national awards and critical acclaim.

In February, my parents took the family on a great trip--through the Panama Canal! We got on a cruise ship in Acapulco (yes, Princess--the Love Boat line), stopped in Puntarenas, Costa Rica; went through the Canal (didn't get off the ship); and stopped in Cartagena, Colombia; Aruba, St. Thomas and then flew back from San Juan, Puerto Rico. It was damn cool. The ship was kind of odd. Kind of a big floating hotel, with a pool, lots of restaurants, a couple of theaters, a casino, disco and events! events! events! They really try to keep you occupied, which is good, because after a few days, I definitely felt a little trapped. My sisters and I haunted the trivia contests and came back with a few odd prizes with the Princess logo on them. Learned how to play craps, and that made up for losing at Blackjack; the Karaoke guy from Utah scared us away from the disco; there were lots of old people so I had a chance to play some bridge; we ! ! did a tour of the ship's bridge; saw shows after dinner every night including a magician-comedian, a singing cowboy-comedian, a ventriloquist-comedian, a Seinfeld-esque-comedian, and an old comedian ("New York City is so dangerous..." If Rudy G. heard that kind of talk, he'd be taken out back and shot). We also ate. A lot. A 24 hour buffet supplemented by a fancy dining room. Plus they would serve you as much as you wanted. Can't decide? Get both! The food was very good quality--not the best ever, but better than average. The best was the last night when they dimmed the lights and the assistant waiters came out in the Parade of the Baked Alaskas with these domes of flaming ice cream.

The stops were all right, but a bit frustrating. Costa Rica seemed pretty but it was a shame we were there for so little time. The best stop was Cartagena. That was because it was a real city, with lots of history and we could spend a few hours seeing sites before going to the shopping areas and picking up souvenirs. The rest of the stops were either just shopping or the beach. In St. Thomas, my sisters and I had a half day on a ship called the Wild Thing that played loud rock music and took us to a bay for snorkeling (we could see a German ship, as well as parrot fish and other neat sea creatures) and a beach for just lying around. That was fun.

The best day, though, was our day through the canal. On approach, you pass under the bridge of the Americas and head toward the first locks. Because it's the shortest route, the canal actually takes you, Pacific to Atlantic, from the Southeast, to the Northwest. Tug boats helped steer us in and we were linked with lines to a couple of engines on tracks on either side. These devices all helped to pull us into the first lock. Our ship, the Sun Princess, was pretty close to Panamax size, that is, as big as you can get and still fit in the Panama canal locks. It looked like we had about two feet clearance on either side. The lock closed and the ship was raised almost thirty feet, and fairly quickly, too. Three locks took us up 85 feet. At that point we were in an artificial lake, Gatun Lake, which feeds the water into the lock system and basically flooded enough of the center of Panama that we could just float through it. It was slightly disturbing to be surrounded by gun boats at this point in our passage, but it turned out the President of Panama had come aboard to do business with cruise line officials. I got a peek of her in the shops after lunch; she looked like a businesswoman. Then we went through the second set of locks, descending rapidly and were in the Atlantic. It was a really neat experience.

Here is an aside about how ugly Manuel Noriega is: I think Noriega must have been one of the ugliest national leaders of all time. The way I figure it, in a democracy, people have to look at least decent (if not movie star handsome) to be elected. Hate to say it, but John Merrick would not make it to Congress even with all the PAC money in the world. And revolutionary leaders like Che or Mao or any other guys with three letter names have to be charismatic enough to get people motivated. Plus, they have to look good on a T-shirt. Even military coups tend to be presided over by good looking fellas. But Noriega. Installed after a coup. He didn't have to look good enough to lead a starving dog to Alpo. That skin! Those eyes! Has any world leader ever been uglier? Let me know if you think of someone.

Meanwhile, back home, the neighbours (i.e. the other side of the house) have cats who have found sneaky ways of getting into our side of the house. One day I threw the same cat out of the house four times before I figured out where he was coming from. It's like I'm Fred Flintstone.

So that's about it. Next Tuesday I'm off to Tell Brak, in northeast Syria. I'll be there for two months and returning in late May. If you want to write me there, you can send mail to:

Tell Brak Excavation
c/o Dept of Antiquities
Hasake, Syria

No e-mail access there. It'll be a nostalgic throwback to the early 80s.

August 30, 1999

Ada and Pete got married on Saturday.

On Wednesday and Thursday, friends of the bride and groom came in from out of town and I hung out with them a bit. I missed the bar hopping on Wednesday which culminated in the ordering of a $129 case of Bud Light at the Presidential Suite of the Charles Hotel in Cambridge. But I was there for the Thursday mass face feeding at Dali's, followed by a night of poker at our humble (and soon to be vacated) abode.

On Friday, we managed to crawl out of bed to drive to Vermont. We stopped by Curtis' Barbecue on the way up and had some delicious ribs (food is the theme here, in case you hadn't noticed yet) and made it up to Camp Wachussett in about four hours. It rained the whole drive up and was drizzling when we got there. I had Alanis Morisette's "Ironic" stuck in my head the whole way ("It's like ray-ee-yain, on your wedding day..."). The camp was by a lake, with canoes and playing fields and cabins on either side of a lawn. The caterer had already set up a tent on the lawn, and put up a decorative arch for the ceremony.

As the sun went down, more guests began to arrive and the sky cleared up in time for some volleyball. Like clockwork, as soon as we got hungry again, we turned around to see Pete's mom drive in with dozens of pizzas. Meanwhile, his sister in law Jeni had been baking dozens of chocolate chip cookies. They were sort of home-made even though they came out of pre-made dough because Jeni is the food engineer who designed all the equipment that pre-made that dough. I was pretty impressed. I tried to express my admiration by stuffing my face full of cookies at every opportunity. Although I single out Jean and Jeni, everyone pitched in to set things up, put out the food, and clean up. Very commune-like, very Vermont.

The next morning Pete and Ada sat around gabbing with people in their shorts and T-shirts until someone finally got them to get dressed before the ceremony. We assembled on the lawn and Stacy MacDonald and I sang a song as Ada and Pete came down the path together. Here's the song:

"I do" (Pete and Ada's Wedding song) by Jack Cheng

I would still love you if you didn't eat pork
I would still love you if you never used a fork
I would still love you if you didn't snore
but you do you do you do

I love the way you speak
I love to cook just to watch you eat
I stop and listen just to hear you breathe
yes I do I do I do

I would still love you if you didn't have hair
And I'd still love you if you didn't love bears
I would still love you if you didn't master stairs
but you do you do you do

I love the fact that you keep fish
And you can pot and make a dish
I might not love you if you didn't play bridge
but you do you do you do

I know our lives are not set in stone
Change is going to come
But we won't have to face that change alone
Together we'll have much more fun

I would still love you if you couldn't drive my truck
I would still love you if you never pushed your luck
I would still love you if you didn't f...ind this very funny
(You do you do you do) <--this part was a Jedi mind trick

I'm always laughing when we bowl
You keep me warm when I get cold
Even your name makes me feel whole
Yes it do, it do, it do

I know that there's no guarantee
That lasts til the end of time
And I know that I'm not perfect yet
But for you I'll keep on trying

For you, for you, for you... I do

Then Tom Berger, Officiant ordained by the Universal Life Church of Modesto, California, welcomed us to the ceremony and introduced the speakers, Scott McNeely and Simon Koike. Scott and Simon both gave great talks that were full of jokes and emphasized how completely comfortable Ada and Pete are together and how right they seem to be for each other. I've never heard so much laughter at a wedding ceremony before.

The vows were very straightforward and clear and Tom was very authoritative as he declared Ada and Pete husband and wife. The whole ceremony was no more than 15 minutes long.

Many photos were then taken, and Ada and Pete jumped into a canoe and paddled around a bit for some photos (Why not, someone said, she's not going to wear that dress again, anyway).

And then we ate. Figs wrapped in bacon, steak on skewers, barbecued ribs, salmon, vegetable kebabs, salads... and chocolate cake. The cake looked a bit like (sorry, art history reference alert) Breughel's Tower of Babel except the building would have been made of chocolate and all the little people on it would be chocolate and there would be rivers of chocolate flowing down it and there would be chocolate in the shape of leaves decorating it. Okay, it didn't look like the Tower of Babel, but it was a big Ziggurat of Chocolate.

The rest of the day was spent playing softball and volleyball, canoeing, sailing, sitting on lawns and drinking beer, telling stories around a bonfire (I'm glad Ray didn't drown in a toilet and I'm also glad I never had to use the bathroom after Kurt... injured himself). The next morning Sarah Tomasi impressed a lot of people with the ribs and donut on her breakfast plate. The Miracle of the Pizzas continued and we tidied up the camp and closed up shop. And, in the last volleyball game, I charged up towards the net, missed the ball, kept running, hit the net with my face, kept running and ended up with on my back a few feet into the other team's court. So my souvenir from the wedding, as I write this, is an X of rope burn right in the center of my forehead, between my eyebrows. Yes, I do look like a dork. Don't worry, though, the pain helped me forget how much it hurt when I whipped myself in the back of the head with one of Pete and Ada's wedding gifts.

[My dumbest move, however, was when tired, and maybe a little tipsy, I flipped the tape I had been recording on my walkman and recorded more campfire stories over the interviews I had been diligently collecting and--it gets worse--the ceremony. I bet Alex Chadwick never does that. So I lost Scott and Simon's speeches, Ada's parents hemming and hawing when I asked about how they liked their new son-in-law ("Well, Jack, what do you think?" Well, he didn't just marry my daughter. "Well, you're younger, and know him better..."), just about everyone telling me how perfect Pete and Ada were for each other, Sara Ivry making nasty comments about Ada's grandmother--to her mother, Pete's roommate N--- (who shall remain anonymous until I figure out how to spell her name) making a nice toast, and lots of random noise. I do still have Kiki telling me about how all the kids in Wayland used to iron their jeans before going to parties and Jane telling me about Pete's au pair. To everyone who will send me jeers for messing up, don't worry, I've already had a few days of self-loathing over this incident and promise never to do it again. And we're going up again next weekend to recreate the whole thing.]

All in all, it was the most mellow wedding I've ever been to and definitely one of the most fun. It was fun because of the setting, and all of the sports. It was fun because of all the people that I met, and it was fun because of all the people I had a chance to see again. It was fun to see all the Vassilovskis again and it was fun to meet all the Cramers. It was fun to figure out how Pete ended up with five parents. Mostly it was fun because Ada and Pete threw a party and they were really enjoying themselves, and when they do, it's infectious.

I'm glad they got married.

August 10, 1999

Back from Turkey.

I hadn't been to Turkey since 1995 and I was excited about going back.

In late June, I met my friend Brendan Burke at Kennedy airport and we flew Lufthansa through Frankfort to Ankara. I have to say, I was a bit disappointed that each of my Lufthansa flights was late--not what I expected from a German company (though as my friend Andy pointed out, the Swiss have the service, the Germans are the manufacturers).

We cooled our heels a bit in Ankara, as we awaited further instructions. Some of you may have heard that the Dumrek survey was hobbled by a problem with our research permit. What happened was that the site of Dumrek, unquestionably related to Gordion and about an hour away by dirt road, turned out to be on just the other side of the modern provincial border. This was a surprise, because people from the modern village come to Polatli, the capital of the province we were in, to interact with the government. But lines are lines and they were officially on the other side of one. That meant our permit, obtained for Polatli province, was not valid at Dumrek and we could not officially survey there. Oops.

So we waited in Ankara. We ate, slept, tried to remember our Turkish, and did some sight seeing. "We" included Brendan, me, Mike Dixon, and Martin Bland. We went out to Bogazkoy for a day and then had dinner with Brendan's friend Cigdem--she ordered delivery from Pizza Hut (!?). Another night we went to the Golge Bar ("Shadow Bar") and saw an excellent cover band with a female lead singer who sounded just like Eddie Vedder. Her voice was so deep that she had to sing Green Day covers an octave down. They rocked! Especially on a hard version of EMF's "Unbelievable" and a Rage Against the Machine cover. During the latter, a mosh pit formed and some oaf hit some other oaf's girlfriend and that started a fight. Luckily our own peacekeeper, Mike "Madeleine" Dixon broke up the scuffle, losing his passport in the process (later recovered).

Then we got the call. There was another survey going on this season, the Gordion Regional Survey run by Lisa Kealhofer, who taught at the College of William and Mary and will be starting at Santa Clara this fall. They had already been at Gordion for a month and were on their mid-season break. We arranged to arrive at Gordion at the end of their break and join them for the second month of survey.

It was a good crew of people, lots of young Americans and we arrived in time for the Fourth of July party. It featured a Lawn Darts Tournament (it was pointed out that Lawn Darts are in fact illegal in America--in fact, John Russick told me a horrible story about a kid who got a Lawn Dart in the spine and survived, but who grew up a gimp), Naomi Miller's always festive kazoo playing, Mary Voigt's um... light ... stick... wavy thing (if you've been there before, you know what I'm talking about; if not, sorry), and then a dance party in the middle of the courtyard.

Most days weren't quite that exciting. Surveying involves measuring out plots of land and marking them at 5 meter intervals. Then each parallel 5 meter line is walked by a surveyor who picks up any pottery that he or she finds and shouts out identifications of modern disturbances ("Metal!" "Plastic!" "Diapers!"). Each of these plots are also mapped out, photographed, sampled for soil color and once enough plots are mapped onto a Geographic Information System (by Steve Batiuk in this case), they become statistically significant. The information will allow us to determine what sort of sites (near springs, for example) were settled in which period. The dating is where the pottery comes in.

Usually, pottery is analyzed by form, meaning pieces of rims and handles and bases (the "diagnostics") are the most important. Peter Grave, Lisa's collaborator, has developed a system that compares fabric types. The idea being that certain deposits of clay would have been accessed at different times by different groups. Comparing against dated samples (pieces that came out of well excavated stratigraphy), ALL of the sherds become diagnostic, even bits from the middle of the body that have no indication of form. If it works, it'll be great, but like survey in general, it takes a lot of low level analysis before patterns can be recognized. This pottery analysis is how we spent our afternoon work times.

It was great seeing all the "old Gordion hands": Mary, Naomi, Ken Sams, Keith DeVries, Cuyler and Pam Young, Jerry Dandoy, Richard Liebhart, Jesse Johnson, Janet Jones and catching up, and great too, to get to know Mike and Martin, Kelly, Elif, Ben, Mark, Andre and all the rest. Elif, an Ankara native, showed us around town a bit and I had a chance to see Turkish Yuppies in their native habitats. In fact, I bowled perhaps my best ten frames in Ankara. A weird fluke-y game where I bowled three or four strikes and a couple of spares and ended up with 150 or so. Okay, not GREAT, but up there with my best. It inspires one of those great philosophical questions: is it more embarrassing to be a bad bowler or a good bowler?

The end of the season came sooner than planned, because we only did half of the Gordion Survey, so we planned on coming back home a little earlier. After work was over, Elif invited a few of us to her parents' summer house in Cesme, to the west of Izmir. It was beautiful--sunny and hot but with a constant breeze to keep us cool. The water was incredibly clean and blue--and so salty and bouyant that I felt like I could walk on water. The best part, though, was meeting Elif's parents, Serim and Bilgi Denel, and her auxiliary parents, Tanay and Torel. They were all friendly architects, as were everyone else on that little spit of land (it began as an architect's co-op three decades ago), and better yet, they were all excellent cooks. What can I say, but: pasta in eggplant sauce, the best stuffed peppers I've had (and I've had a lot), roasted red peppers in yogurt and dill, lentil soup with bits of melted cheese, and the glorious borek with eggplant and meat. My god, the borek! Brendan watched in horrified fascination as I ate three helpings of it. "You're going to make yourself sick!" he warned. I told him that I wouldn't remember being sick in a month, but I would never forget that borek.

The trip back was fairly uneventful, although in Izmir I watched a bunch of cars drive by, honking, cheering and making happy post-wedding noises. The guys hanging out of the car gave me the index finger and pinkie "devil sign" so I gave it back, happily. Elif was appalled and explained to me that the devil sign is the sign of the ultra-right wing in Turkey. Funny that.

Back in Ankara before our flight, we were killing time and Brendan decided to get his shoes shined. He waved off the hordes of little kids and pointed to an older man with shoe shining gear. "That guy is the master," he informed me and went to get the master treatment. I sat and read until Brendan started yelling, "Jack! Come over here! Look what he's done!" The master had been mixing colours and it turns out he wasn't all that consistent. One shoe was a coffee brown and the other was a red mahogany brown. Brendan protested until some more brown came into the red shoe but the damage was done. He had mismatched shoes. Let's go bowling!, I suggested.

So now I'm back again, in Somerville. In review, I'd have to say I was pretty pleased with how much Turkish I remembered, and happy that I had a chance to see more of the Ankara that natives hang out in. And it was a great time to renew friendships and meet lots of great people. And now I'm glad to be home and can't wait to finish this darn dissertation.

And now I hear about the earthquake. News is slow in coming and some of the Gordion crew are still travelling in Turkey. I hope they are all right. A few people have asked me about the digs I work on. They are far enough away that not much happened, although a couple of stones apparently shifted on the main gate. The equivalent distance is if there was an earthquake in New York and a stone wall collapsed in Boston. Not good.

The last thing to mention is that we just got an eviction notice from our landlady. Turns out she wants to move in here in October. She must be a masochist. In any case, I'll be moving again and, as usual, my electronic address will be the most reliable way to reach me.

May 28, 1999

Just got back from a quick trip to Hong Kong and Tokyo. How that happened takes a bit of a back story.

After I decided to hang out in the Boston area last fall, I was looking for a part time job. My friend Ada Vassilovski (remember her? She's the one at college who bought 52 pairs of underwear so she only had to do laundry once in a blue moon--she got an MBA. No, really) suggested a position at the management consulting firm she was working at, Integral, Inc. I took a job as a receptionist, working four hours a day in the afternoon. It was a good deal for me, letting me work on my dissertation during the day, and then making enough to pay my expenses.

A few weeks ago, Ada, who had been travelling mostly to New Jersey for work, was asked to go to Singapore, Taipei, Hong Kong and Tokyo to do some research for a client. "Wouldn't that be cool if you could come?" Ada asked. Yep, I said. The next day, she told me I was coming. Her argument to the company: she needed help to do her work, I was the lowest paid employee at Integral and therefore they could afford to "reassign" me for a while, we are old friends so she was willing to share expenses (i.e. a hotel room) with me and I could speak Mandarin Chinese. This made sense to them and after some scrambling for guidebooks and borrowing a suitcase from Pete Cramer (Ada's fiance), we were off!

Oh, and in case you're wondering what we were doing, I'm afraid I can't tell you. In fact, I wasn't told until I was on the plane. It's a "secret" case, more secret than the usual client confidentiality, in other words, I didn't even tell other people at work why we were going.

Oh right. And also, we were re-scheduled so we skipped Singapore and Taipei (where they speak Mandarin) so there went one reason to send me. And they booked me my own room, so that's a second reason. Luckily, Ada still needed help and I was still the lowest paid employee.

We flew from Boston to Chicago and then onto Hong Kong, flying over Alaska and Irkutsk (which you may remember from playing the game Risk). Apparently this is one of the longest segments of commercial flying. It felt like it. When we finally stepped out of the plane at the new airport in Hong Kong, we got a blast of the heat and humidity that was coming.

After a quick trip in on the airport express train, I promptly got us lost wandering around the second story labyrinth of skyways. But with help, we made it to the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Central, Hong Kong's business district. The Mandarin is a great hotel. The service was always prompt and extremely good, the rooms impeccably clean and every amenity was made available. After a quick dinner (Ada's first dim sum of the trip--but not the last), we took a walk around Central, and down to the water near the ferry docks.

Back at the hotel, I wandered up to Vong's, the Hong Kong branch of Jean-Georges Vongerichten's eponymous restaurants (also in New York and London). We had gone up earlier to see if the Sue Kim listed as manager in the hotel brochure could possibly be the Sue Kim I had gone to school with (well, we had gone to school with, but Ada didn't know her). And it was! I hadn't seen Sue since we graduated and I was pleased and surprised that she remembered me. Although it was a Monday night, Vong's was packed and Sue was very busy. Sue had been working with Jean-Georges in New York and when the opportunity to manage the restaurant in Hong Kong came, she took it. Although she found Hong Kong a wee bit shallow and hard to deal with, Sue said the potential for growth--personal and financial--was undeniable and attractive. It was really good to see her, and I was quickly reminded of how solid a person she is, self-confident from being self-aware.

Tuesday, our first day of work, began with shopping. (Okay, I'll tell you this about the secret project: we were looking at retail spaces.) We looked in some malls, a department store, some alleys selling fresh vegetables and meat (not a completely happy sight) and then wandered up Arbuthnot Road to meet with Sandra Walters. Sandra's son Chad dates my sister Vera and Chad had kindly made the introduction (Mom--Jack, Jack--Sandra). And Arbuthnot Road is longer than I thought, steeper than I thought and altogether a sweaty mess to get to. But we made it. And Sandra was great. Not only was she friendlier than I could have hoped for, she gave us a lot of good information and some key contacts for the rest of our stay. And she invited us to come to an art opening at the University.

The rest of the day was filled with more shopping. I know this may sound like fun to some people but it was really hard work. We had lunch at a place recommended in one of the guides and then realized when the food came that we had about 5 minutes to eat before rushing off to another appointment. I impressed Ada with my mastery of chopsticks, but more importantly, by my gluttony. Don't worry, Ma, we didn't waste any food.

Around 6, we took a cab to Hong Kong University where we saw the show by Tomek Kawiak, a Polish-French artist who is obsessed with Levi's jeans. Jeans were part of his oeuvre from early on and his latest project was the molding of more than 300 pairs of jeans in ceramic (standing up, as if just the lower half of a person) which were to be buried in China, like the terracotta army of the first emperor in Xian. It's a totally half baked, wacky idea and it was awesome. Very funny, but the jeans were also very cool objects aesthetically, and the whole burial project was totally clever. The exhibition had some early pieces and some jeans, but the bulk of the jeans were in Shenzhen to be buried in the next week or so. The opening was fun and I got to meet Sandra's husband Rick, and her mother. Both told great stories about living in Hong Kong for decades and it was great to meet them. Chad's grandmother mentioned that she was trying to get out of a bridge game and Ada seemed willing to hurt her to get the address out of her. Oh, and the whole time, a dozen people kept coming up to me and telling me how great my sister Vera is.

After the show, Ada and I continued shopping, going over to Causeway Bay, a young, hip neighborhood that stayed open a little later. We were startled by how Japanese the fashion and fads were. There were lots of weird cell phone accessories, Japanese photo booths and blond people. I told Ada that I hadn't seen so many blond Asians in my life, and I hadn't, at that point. The odd clickety clack of tiles drew me into a mah jongg parlor where we tried to watch the people play but were overwhelmed by the number of people who stopped playing to turn and watch us. After a late supper of Thai food, we were quickly succumbing to the gravity of jet lag and just managed to get back to the Mandarin before we fell down.

The rest of the trip included shopping in Kowloon (I bought a pair of pants for $18, and they hemmed it for free in 15 minutes--and then we found places selling TWO pairs of pants for $18), visiting about a dozen Prada stores ("Prada is the Gap here," Ada declared), eating very good dim sum, seeing Stanley Market, having a curried potato pie at McDonald's, wandering through the Japanese department store Seibu ("I love you, Seibu" was the mantra), eating sublime dim sum--one of the best meals of my life at a place called Dim Sum in Happy Valley, and, when we were really zonked, going to see The Matrix on opening day in Hong Kong! With perverse pride, I'll admit that I had gone to see The Matrix on opening day in America (in Nashville of all places), and Ada had seen it before so we ignored the fact that we were twenty minutes late and settled in for some kung fu fighting. A cool thing about the theatre was that they sold us specific seats. We pointed at a monitor to the ones that we wanted and the guy printed them out for us. Hong Kong was an awesome place to see the movie again, since it is basically a Hong Kong style movie. We were hoping to find a T-shirt or poster or anything of the Matrix with Chinese writing on it, but the closest we found was a video cd of the movie (and that was two days before the movie opened).

Ada and I went back and forth about Hong Kong. We decided it would be a great place to live. Then a lousy one. Then maybe we could live there for a couple of years. Then not at all. Ad infinitum. Among the negatives were the workaholic money obsessed attitude of most residents that Sue complained of, the climate, the still palpable colonial feel, and (this was the kicker for Ada) the giant cockroaches and flying centipedes. On the plus side there was energy and excitement of the city, the surprise whenever someone opened their mouth because we couldn't guess from what they looked like if their accent would be Chinese, American, British, French or anything else--a phenomenon that really destroyed any residual stereotypes, the ten-story or higher bamboo scaffolding used to build skyscrapers, the great infrastructure (subways, outdoor escalators, skyways) that made it seem like the world of the Jetsons, and the cool cutting edge electronic goods. Overall, I felt like it was a Chinese New York--a teeming mass of people from all over the world who arrived to make a buck or two--but without the old money culture that supports large museums, theatres, and opera companies. I settled on: I think I could live there for a couple of years.

And then we were off to Tokyo.

Tokyo changed a lot about what I thought of Hong Kong. Compared to Tokyo, Hong Kong was crime ridden, dirty and pre-modern. And the Mandarin suddenly became my second favorite hotel in the world after the Hotel Seiyo in Ginza.

The Hotel Seiyo has only 80 or so rooms and is not open to the public. You can only go in if you are a guest, and from the moment we arrived, they started addressing me as "Mr. Cheng" and throwing doors open for me, lending me umbrellas, giving me free beer. Well, not free exactly, if you consider how much the place costs.

A walk through Ginza at night met dozens of people milling about with bags from Tiffany's. We weren't sure where they came from, but decided they must be a wedding party of some sort. I was trying to follow the directions in a guide book for an inexpensive Yakitori restaurant but got a bit confused. Part of the problem is that streets aren't numbered (or always named) in Tokyo. Instead, their are neighborhoods identified by number, and then blocks identified by number and then buildings are identified by number--in the order they were built. So you don't know what side of the block a given building is on given the address. The address is just a series of numbers (in this way, it's a bit like MIT but without the underlying logic of that campus). All the guide books said to just get near where you need to be and then ask someone. So I tried. I walked towards the first person coming down the street. She gave me a wide berth (like ten feet) and refused to look at me. I tried this a few times with all the same result. Finally, I stood in front of a trio of young women and there were too many of them to get around me. They didn't speak much English but I showed them the guide book and the name of the restaurant. One of the girls expertly pulled out a cell phone and dialed the restaurant. She spoke rapidly to the person on the other end. Then she started looking around and describing where we were. Finally she started walking very quickly, still talking. I might not have followed her except she had our guide book. I was speed walking to keep up with her and she was speed talking all the while. Then a guy opened a door, looked around and waved to us. She pointed at him and said the name of the restaurant. Then I got to use one of my few Japanese phrases: Domo arigato, which I learned from my very first record album, Styx' Kilroy Was Here. It was all I could do to stifle the "Mr. Roboto" that I felt completed the phrase.

The restaurant was a cozy place with no foreigners besides us (actually, that kind of describes Tokyo, which is a huge metropolis with an amazingly homogenous population). I think that's where I first mentioned to Ada that I thought that there was a certain Japanese face that I found quite cute on women and handsome on men and there was another that I found rather hideous. She agreed and said her Japanese American friend Miko also pointed this out with the explanation that some Japanese were descended from the cultured class and others came from peasants. Being a closet communist, I tried not to guess which was which. My yakitori (skewered chicken broiled on a grill) on rice was very good. Ada got the sampler dinner and some was quite good and some was not quite identifiable and kind of scary. My question to you: what part of the chicken is about the size of a stack of 4 American nickels, and crunches somewhat like a radish? Part of the reason I was not so bold as to get the sampler was that we only had 5000 Yen cash and the place didn't take credit cards. So we nearly went into cardiac arrest when we were handed a 7000 Yen bill. Luckily, it belonged to someone else.

Our next goal then, was to get some cash. But none of the Japanese ATMs had English instructions. We tried hitting random buttons but for fear of losing our cards, didn't do that too much. Mostly we just looked at each other's panic stricken faces. Finally, Ada noticed a Citibank. "Remember your homeland, Citibank!" she shouted and sure enough, there was an English option for the ATM.

The next morning we had breakfast at the Hotel Seiyo. Eggs and toast for two came out to about $50. We decided never to eat in the hotel again.

At the Matsua department store, people lined up waiting to get in. (I, of course, thinking that they must be waiting for a tour--what else do Japanese people do?--just wandered in before getting stopped by a guard.) At precisely 10:30, a bell sounded, a woman announced something and we all surged in. Walking past the cosmetic and jewelry counters, women and men bowed to us and murmured Japanese politesse at us as we strode by. For reasons that escape me, we went straight up to the roof where there was a pet store, video games and a playground for kids and a golf driving range.

The Tokyo shopping had begun. We saw some more "depato", had lunch in a Chinese restaurant (it was good! and the people there were speaking Chinese--see I do know Mandarin--prompting Ada to point out that no matter how good the job opportunities were, she couldn't see her Jewish parents moving to Germany), and ended up at the Sony building. Sony displayed all of its latest technology, most of which was really cool and one of which was a robot dog named Aibo (rhymes with Tae-bo). Aibo was kind of neat and kind of scary, but scarier still was the Japanese audience oohing and cooing at it like it was a real puppy. People! It's a robot!

We then got on the fabulous Tokyo subway where we saw an orchestra play (no kidding) and went to Shibuya. Shibuya was packed with people. Now, I'm not a rural boy. I've been to Tianemen Square. I've been in the bazaar in Istanbul. I've walked by Times Square around 10 pm on New Year's Eve. Shibuya, on an ordinary Sunday, was packed with people. Ada described it best as being like a rock festival. There were hundreds of blond and tanned Asians looking like California hippies (good thing Sue warned us about this trend). Half a dozen bands were playing at once and another half a dozen boomboxes were providing the beat for break dancers. The stores in Shibuya were mostly trendy fashion for teens and young adults. But then there was Tokyu Hands.

Tokyu Hands is the best store I've ever been in. Seriously. If you have ever gone shopping with me, you might think, c'mon Jack, is it better than a Staples Superstore? Pearl Paint? Kate's Paperie? Is it better than a giant Home Depot? Is it as drool-worthy as Williams-Sonoma? Yep. Because Tokyu Hands is seven stories of stationery and office supplies, hardware and tools, backpacks and neoprene pouches and little plastic bottles, and furniture and cookware, and clocks and Halloween costumes and party favors, and bicycle gear and bathroom products and basically millions of things I didn't know I needed or wanted until I saw them. Every object is perfectly designed and wonderfully packaged. Ada made a comment about how she didn't realize plastic could look so tasty and I'm not sure she meant to limit that comment to the plastic food replicas. I went berserk in Tokyu Hands. Ada figures I bought something on every floor (it's true that I ended up making a lot of $2 charges on my Amex card).

After that glorious experience, we went to Kirin City for a bite to eat and then wandered into HMV. Kelly and Gavin were in Japan last year and brought back cds, including one by Super Butter Dog that is superb. So Ada and I each went to get our own copies of Super Butter Dog and we ended up listening to a lot more Japanese pop at the listening stations. One band Ada liked was played on the video monitors and was called "Glay". Ada went to ask for Glay but was having trouble (not many people speak English in Tokyo). Finally, she pointed at the monitors and said it was the band that was just on the video. "Oh!" said the girl, "You mean 'Gray'!" We nearly died laughing.

A little interjection here. You might notice that I refer to "young women" and "girls" in Tokyo. It's not because I'm sexist and patronizing (though I may be). It's because there is a bizarre youth culture in Tokyo. Unlike the USA where everyone wants to be 18 or date an 18 year old, everyone in Tokyo seems to want to be 14 and the reciprocal consequences are a little sick to think about. Sue Kim told us she heard that school girls can sell their used underwear to a company that sells them in vending machines. We never saw this ourselves, but I thought it would be a good rumor to spread on the Internet.

The interjection's interjection: just have to mention the proliferation of vending machines on the street. They are all over and apparently no one thinks to break into them, and no underage kids think to buy the beer from them. My favorite drink from them was Pocari Sweat, which sounds gross, but was basically a thirst quenching Gatorade like drink, replacing everything you lost from sweating.

And finally, one more random observation: there were an extraordinary number of people with eye patches in Tokyo. If anyone can explain that to me, I'd love to know what that's about.

Okay, so after HMV, we went to Roppongi, which was supposed to be a crazed night time scene, but was pretty empty. We saw Little Beverly Hills--the Hard Rock Cafe, Tony Roma's and another California chain--and had a beer at another Yakitori place. And on our way back to the hotel, we had another savory McDonald's pie: bacon and potato. It was really really good. They need to bring this to America.

The next day we had bagels for breakfast, across the street from our hotel. Then we had a meeting with some guys at Mitsubishi who insisted that their position as a real estate broker and major developer, architecture firm, and landlord, was not a conflict of interest. It's synergy. They were very funny about trying to guess who our secret client was. "If you told us the name, would we recognize it?" "Are they currently involved in taking over a European telecom company?" One cool thing about meeting them was that we were shown into the meeting room and served coffee by o erus in polyester uniforms. O eru is short for "Office Lady" (remember Glay) and I had just read The Accidental Office Lady by Laura Krisko, a perfect book recommendation and gift from Kelly. It's about an American who goes to work in Japan for Honda and is baffled by the fact that all the women are required to wear uniforms (but not the men) among other customs. A good read.

Lunch was at a nice noodle shop and we later got snacks at an AM PM. You know the kind of cookies we got, right? Chocorate. I'm not kidding here, the guide books explain that this is how you have to talk to be understood.

After more shopping, we visited the Meiji Dori shrine and it's garden. The garden was beautiful, overgrown and dense and if we had to choose a path, there was always a sign that told us "WAY". Way, we brayed and turned right. Way, we mooed and turned left.

Then we stopped into a pachinko parlor (even louder than mah jongg) and got to Takashimaya Times Square where, aside from the Takashimaya Depato, there's a second Tokyo Hands store (okay, I'm an addict). Ada bought paper for her wedding invites there. We had tonkatsu (fried pork loin) and all you can eat cabbage in the world's best food court. On the way out, we noticed what looked like an ice cream counter but with tubs filled with colored "dots". Ada turned to me and said, You know, 25% of the stuff here is completely unknown to me. Yes, I replied, but you eat it anyway.

We had a walk through Kabuki-cho, the "red-light" district of Tokyo which seemed extremely safe, not at all seedy and only repulsive when you noticed magazines like "Popsy" featuring suggestive photos of (clothed) adolescent girls. (Gotta admit I like the title, though.)

On some of the many tv monitors throughout the day I saw Winona Ryder doing an ad for a car, Whitney Houston for a bank and Brad Pitt for Edwin Jeans. "Edwin!"

Oh, here's another weird thing: even though it seemed like total information overload, the city was remarkably quiet and a lot of that had to do with the fact that the cars were so silent as to make us wonder if they were electric. And no one beeped their horns. And there were no car alarms.

On our last full day in Tokyo, we of course shopped some more (had to earn our keep). We also had a McDonald's pizza pie (new goal in life: taste every kind of McDonald's fried pies) and saw a statue of Godzilla. We walked by the Imperial Palace and browsed the Akihabara, an area of discounted electronics.

At the end of the day, we went to Jingu stadium to see the home Yakult Swallows play the Yokohama Bay Stars ("Yokohama sucks! Yakult Swallows!"). I was really hoping to see the Nippon Ham Fighters in the Tokyo Dome ("the big egg") but we had a great time with Yakult. We sat in the bleachers with the Yakult fans and tried to clap along to all their organized cheers. The field was a bit smaller than Major League ball, but no one hit a homu runu. In fact, it was all very conservative play. Lots of sacrifice bunting. Only one stolen base. We sat and drank Sapporo and I ate fried octopus balls with mayonnaise (Ada didn't want any). When our team was doing well, trumpet players blared, flag wavers waved and everyone sent nuts. When we scored, everyone opened up their umbrellas, most of which were translucent green and bobbed them up and down over their heads. It looked cool from where we were and must have looked even better from the dug out. It was all very exciting and our pitcher pitched eight innings and drove in a safety run in a 5-0 game.

And then I came home.

November 13, 1997

I've been having really weird dreams lately. Some are very cinematic and one in particular was just totally bizarre and in a whole 'nother genre: a dream recipe.

I dreamt I was filling room temperature manicotti shells with sweet ricotta (into which I had beaten some powdered sugar). Then I grated milk chocolate over the shells and garnished them with slices of strawberries. Haven't made this yet, but I'm looking forward to trying it out. Is this an actual dish or did I dream it up whole?

September 1, 1997

Three (more or less) thoughts on Diana:

Having just read Crash, by J.G. Ballard, and then seeing the movie by David Cronenberg, I was a little disappointed that the character Vaughn did not, in the movie, have the same obsession to die in a car crash with Elizabeth Taylor, as he did in the book. A horrible obsession to be sure, but the character wanted to be part of a car crash that would be known, that would make him immortal (at the same time giving himself a certain amount of erotic pleasure). Crash the book was published in 1973. Elizabeth Taylor does not have the same clout anymore. I wondered who they could have substituted-Winona Ryder? Jodie Foster?--but the death of Diana made the answer clear. This is clearly the car crash of our generation, as Vaughn had venerated the deaths of James Dean, Jayne Mansfield and others ("Do you consider the Kennedy assassination a form of car crash?" "The case could be made."). The creepiest thing about it was the description I read of how the engine block pushed into the knees of the person in the front seat (not Diana), a description of the impact of machine and man that very clearly evoked the fictional accident of Ballard's narrator.

I'm not sure if it was just a construct of movies, but I remember stories of natives who would shy away from cameras because they felt the photographs were stealing parts of their soul. I'm starting to come around to this position. Surely Jeremy Bentham, the originator of the Panopticon that Foucault describes in Discipline and Punish, was right in that the power of one way vision is very much real. And to trap that vision forever is something special. (At the same time, the power to attract attention and vision should not be discounted, and Diana knew and exploited that power herself, usually for charitable and worthy causes.) When I consider the often vacuous interviews with models, I wonder how much of their soul now belongs to Steven Meisel, or the Vogue morgue (an appropriate metaphor). When so much of your life is spent being defined by others, how much of your life is left for yourself? I'd been mulling over this idea, souls trapped in cameras and the circumstances of Diana's death, and of her life, suggest to me that this may be true.

I met, or rather saw on the street, Diana once. It was September 8, 1992 and prompted an entry in a fairly sporadic journal. Two friends and I saw a crowd on a London street and we waited with them for Diana to emerge from a building, a children's hospital or something like that. (Mother Theresa was in there talking with Diana, but we didn't know this until later and didn't stay around to see her.) In front of me was a woman with flowers. She and her friend told us that they took time off of work whenever they knew of the Princess' public appearances that they could attend.

Diana came out of the building and waved. (It might be worth noting, too, that we were able to stand directly behind the girl with the flowers, who was right behind the police barriers, and the press were required to stand behind the public.) I took photos as fast as I could rewind my camera. She kept getting closer. I lowered my camera when she approached the woman in front of me to accept the flowers and exchange a few words. The young woman told Diana that she had her support in a difficult time. Diana thanked her and asked after a friend. He couldn't get the time off work, she was told. After a few more words, the princess left in a car.

Impressions: she was both more beautiful and more elegant than I had imagined, even after the countless photos and hours of videotape that I had seen. The cameras had obviously not been able to capture her completely. When I thought of the conversation she had with the young woman, I marveled that she was so considerate to befriend this woman, and to have even missed her absent friend. And I was saddened that her life was such that this was a real relationship for her.

Overall, I suppose I feel sorry for her; her life was a difficult one and was so far beyond normal celebrity than one cannot argue that she was in any way prepared for it. But more than this sadness is an admiration for the dignity she always showed, defining herself and protecting her family and herself as best as she could. Even though I detest news stories that claim a child trapped in a well is a "hero" for having survived, in the case of Diana, I do find something heroic in mere survival.

August 23, 1997

On Wednesday, Baldwin swept into town! Excitement! From New Hampshire, he came to read the pulse on 125th Street for his latest potential client. And he brought me armfuls of magazines! How awesome! It pretty much killed the rest of the week for work, but well worth it. And let me warn you all, the magazine Swing sucks (I write this is with full awareness of Baldwin telling me that the word "suck" is often thought of as more offensive than any other word it rhymes with).

Thursday I went down to Barneys warehouse sale. Barneys removed the apostrophe from its name after they got a cool bag design that lined up all the letters of BARNEYS with NEW YORK-the bag looked so good they changed the name of the store to fit. No kidding. Anyway, they have an annual warehouse sale which would be a great place to buy a suit if you're in the market. I wasn't. I really wanted a bow tie. You know, to learn how to tie it and just be as incredibly cool as Paul Simon (Senator, not singer). So after browsing some and seeing nice shirts, 50% off and still out of my price range (Barneys taste + GAP budget = stay at home), I found a couple of ties and went to line up. One of the ties, by the way, was $5, the cheapest thing I found in the store-socks were on sale for $7, down from $15. The line snaked around the entire warehouse and the cashier looked a little disappointed in me when I handed her my ties. I asked her what her biggest ring up was (this was three hours after the sale began). $3000. Whew. I was probably the lowest ring on the register. My ties went into a big brown paper bag that was stapled shut. As I left, the guy checking goods against cash register receipts laughed at my little purchase.

On the subway home, I noticed the woman (white, petite, close to fifty, white hair, sunglasses, restrained stylishness) next to me had the umbrella Oscar was complaining looked too girly. I liked it, though and told her so. And then I noticed she had a Sun Microsystems backpack. I showed her my Java hat and we talked about my sister and her boyfriend. She told me she was moving out to California and we talked about art and museums to see in the Bay Area. I mentioned the Barbie museum in Palo Alto, she professed a love of Barbies, I then mentioned the Barbie song that's making waves and she said she was in the record industry. Oh, do you work in dance music (the Barbie song genre)? No, she said, I work with gangsta rappers-I love that stuff! Yes, she said "gangsta" not "gangster". That kind of took me by surprise, not only because of how she looked, but also because she had felt compelled to justify the sexist lyrics of the Barbie song as a joke. I should have asked her what she felt about sexism in rap, but she had to get off the train.

Then I turned to Michele, next to me, and told her that I hadn't ever had such a long conversation with anyone on the train before. The woman across from us (black, thirties, very expressive face) jumped in and said her husband was always complaining about her yammering on with strangers and then she came to sit next to me and tell me she was an actress and that her family used to rent Willem de Kooning's house in the summer and would see all these paintings lying around.

It was nice to meet such friendly people in New York. Yay, Big Apple!

By the way, I've found recently that people are very much against saying the word "black". I was playing ultimate frisbee with some very nice people in East River Park and as we planned our defense, it was suggested that I cover "the other Dave". Which one was he? The guy in the blue shorts. I squinted. You mean the black guy? Yeah. Dave was the only black guy in the game, which to me, would have been a real salient characteristic to identify him with, but apparently that's not done anymore. Oh well.

Oh last thing. Heard about a game that was played in the 14th century. Take a cat, nail it to a post, leaving its paws free and be careful not to kill it. Then tie players' hands behind their backs. The object of the game is to kill the cat by bashing it with your forehead as it scratches at you. The player who delivers the death blow wins. I'm trying to think up some witty riposte to sum up with but nothing comes to mind.

August 15, 1997

Okay, I know this sounds weird, but I've been anthropomorphizing my spellchecker. Every time I write a word it doesn't know, like "riff", I think to myself, Oh the poor little spellchecker doesn't get to listen to much music, poor thing. Or if I write a word like "orientalizing", I think, You stupid thing! How can you not know about Orientalism!?

Random fact: in Turkey the "Okay" hand gesture is an invitation to sodomy and is bad. In Iran, the thumb's up means the same as flipping the bird and the thumb's down is good. This is how wars get started.

By the way, is "thumb's up" right? I'm thinking it's short for "the thumb is up". Or should it be (multiple) "thumbs up"?

Someone help me before I start actually working on my dissertation.

August 14, 1997

Howdy. Plugs first.

I just got a couple of great cds that I am playing over and over again. One is Sarah McLaughlin's latest, Surfacing, and the other is Ben Folds Five's Whatever and Ever After. Surfacing is the same wash of soulful sound that I forget also has a rockin' beat. And BFF are a rock piano trio that just trundles and blunders ahead with lots of great catchy riffs and the kind of dumb, loopy lyrics that make sense if you imagine Ben Folds just sat down with a story in mind and then sang it. Aside from "The Battle of Who Could Care Less" and "One Angry Dwarf..." which I've heard on the radio, I'm really getting into "Kate". Fun pop music!

Just read a great mystery novel called Last Act in Palmyra by Lindsey Davis and starring Marcus Didius Falco, a tough guy informer (kind of like a PI) in ancient Rome. Plotting was so-so but the characters are great and the realization of ancient Syria was great. I'm off to look for more Falco books by he/she the author person.

Finally, saw a funny off off Broadway show called Night of the Crab. Okay, I'll admit that I know the director, Andrew Dunn and have met the writer, the lighting guy, and the guy who designed the crab, but really, it was funny. Among the amusing "previews" for this 50s horror movie spoof was "Buddy Lescher, Effeminate P.I." which will be expanded in the next "Sweater Set" show in October. Look for it!

Okay, what's been going on since June?

Back in New York, I've actually starting writing my dissertation. Hello page 6! Pretty rough draft, I'll tell ya, but I've got an outline for the whole thing and Irene Winter, my esteemed advisor is back on the continent (she was never incontinent, I don't care who told you what) so when I get the green light from her, it's full speed ahead.

I've decided to stay in New York for a little while yet. What can I say? I like it.

On the other hand, I keep leaving. I spent a few fun- and friend- packed days in Cambridge/Boston and went to a wedding in Napa and spent a few days in the South Bay Area. The wedding was beautiful and I think Scott and Andrea ("Ahn DRAY uh" to the minister; "AN dree a" to everyone else) are a good match. Sometimes you meet a couple and they seem pretty different, but then you realize that they fill in each other and make a good fit. They're definitely a good fit. Mike Jonath gave a toast giving three reasons why he thought they were a good couple but he forgot one-they look good together. Oh, but she's Canadian and I still suspect Scott just married her for a passport. Keep an eye on him.

Anyway, had a lot of fun both places with a number of people, and I ATE LIKE A SUMO WRESTLER. Let me give you an example. Batu offered to bring some salmon over to Julide's house to cook for us. He showed up with the back side of what looked a lot like the fish from Jaws. Seriously, it was... I'm looking around my room for a comparably sized object... as big as... let me check the kitchen... it was as big as our toaster oven (provided you crimped one end of it so it tapered into a fin). A huge thing. Then, because there were five us to eat this toaster oven sized ichthygargantuan, Batu reached into the paper bag and pulled out ANOTHER one. We had huge steaks, then had seconds, and then ate more.

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, Jack (or Jak, or J or D), how can you eat like a Sumo wrestler whenever you leave New York? The answer is, I practice eating like a Sumo wrestler when I'm at home. Some people may dispute this. For instance, I always eat like a bird with one new friend of mine but the reason is, I'm often on my second dinner when I meet her. I figure, if breakfast is the most important meal of the day, eat two-plus it breaks up the terrible "between-meal" monotony.

In Boston I saw the new 10, 000 Maniacs and felt a great deal of sympathy for the new front woman. She's no Natalie Merchant, but who knows, maybe she's a real maniac, maniac on the streets. They opened up for the Brian Setzer Orchestra, a rocking 17 piece big band backing the rockabilly stylings of the Stray Cats' lead singer/guitar hero. Cool!

Went to the SF MOMA for the first time. Nifty building, but not a huge exhibition space. There was a groovy exhibit there of two Swiss artists, Fischli and Weiss. The best thing they did was a half hour film of a Rube Goldberg set up in a warehouse. Among the wonders that propelled this machine were the slow expansion of a air mattress, the gust of air from a board, flaming foam, and cylinders that went UPHILL. So awesome.

Also on my travels, I saw the Barenaked Ladies in Palo Alto! What a great band, and especially good live. They were energetic, funny and best of all, looked happy to be there. Withhold your money from all those sullen Brits and angry Americans and give it all to the happy Canadian in your life.

Okay, I'm tired now, from talking a blue streak of random nonsense all day today. I'll try to write more often if you try to be tolerant of my incessantly boring stretches of that great tapestry I call my so-called life.

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