Sunday, September 23, 2007
Friday, September 21, 2007
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Monday, September 17, 2007
goodnight, my love
Tuesday, April 3, 2007
A highly entertaining discovery today, found in a course reading:
within the Heart of the Town, it will be handsomer not to have [the street] strait, but winding about several Ways, backwards and forwards, like the Coarse of a River... by appearing so much the longer, they will add to the Idea of the Greatness of the Town... Moreover, this winding of the Streets will make the Passenger at every Step discover a new Structure, and the Front Door of every House will directly face the Middle of the Street... by Means of the Turn of the Street. (Alberti, The Ten Books of Architecture, 1755)
a new adventure.
airports / humidity / photojournals / salmon and rice / jane jacobs / a bonfire / yorkville, the beaches, and the humber / phone plans / grumpy italian men / maps / muskoka hefe-weissbier / bicycling / laundromats / falafels / windy nights / public speaking / solitude / taxation / high park / streetcars / newcastle brown / spontaneous tears / red sneakers / the islands / supervisors and references / time zones / tidiness / reconnection / urban exploration / sincerity
I've been writing here, off and on, for almost eight years. In binary notation, that's 1000 years, and that, to me, is worthy of celebration and pause.
So let's reflect. What have I spent these 1000 years doing? More than anything, I've been learning. I've spent some time working and seeing other places (and a lot of time sleeping), but I've been in school almost consistently. I'd say learning has been my dominant activity, and I like that. I'd like it if learning were my dominant activity for the next 1000 years too.
What have I learned, then? For starters, I can cook food that is one or two notches better than the food I cooked 1000 years ago. I had hoped that after this long I would have learned to cook even better food, though. That's something to keep in mind for the next 1000 years.
What else has changed? We can glean some insight by reading back in this journal. The first thing I notice is that the text seems smaller than it used to. It was always pretty small, but it is almost illegibly small now. If I'm not just imagining this, it must mean that the resolution of computer monitors has increased at a faster rate than the size of the monitors themselves. If that trend continues for another 1000 years, this website may well go the way of the microfiche. In that case, nobody will notice if I fill this page with litigious, time-wasting fabrications like TINA TURNER GIVES BIRTH TO A HORSE.
Another thing I notice is that I used to ask a lot of questions. I don't see as many questions in recent years' entries. This got me worried for a minute. Has my formal education extinguished my curiosity about the world? I considered this, and I think the answer is no. My education has taught me to focus and define my questions, and it has also taught me how to set about answering them. So maybe I have been answering many of my own questions instead of merely posing them. That is good.
here is a whisper i've packaged and sent to you
carefully caught in my hand and squeezed, pressurized
as a drop of water set upon a grasshopper's back
speeding across villages and postal codes
wobbling, inverting itself, but enduring
it coagulates now, a snowy crystal dropped above the great rockies
- by now i am fast asleep! -
and then, proffering a sigh (a sound much like the one that created it)
it slips into a cold waterway
in a few hours it will slide past,
freeing you of the evening's appointment and remorse
unfolding in your inner ear.
I looked at your picture for some time tonight. You are bold, boxy, with clammy, humid summers and long winters. Not many bicycles. You are strange to me. Parts of you fall asleep Friday at 5 and don't wake up until Monday morning. They tell me you have many cultural and artistic offerings and a varied selection of neighbourhoods and eateries. You are altogether rather homely, but I saw remnants of an old-fashioned charm down some of your side streets. You seem orderly. You seem quite ordinary. Me too. You keep busy enough. Me too. But what is special about you? I don't know what is special about me. Maybe we can help each other find out.