What’s in that tab?

After a particularly horrible day today, I was decompressing when I found a song I’ve been looking for for a long time.

The song, called Praan (I discovered), is the song from the “Where the hell is Matt?” video. The song is fantastic (listen). What’s even more fantastic is that it is from Rabindranath Tagore’s Gitanjali. It is Stream of Life set to music.

Stream of Life

The same stream of life that runs through my veins night and day

runs through the world and dances in rhythmic measures.

It is the same life that shoots in joy through the dust of the earth

in numberless blades of grass

and breaks into tumultuous waves of leaves and flowers.

It is the same life that is rocked in the ocean-cradle of birth

and of death, in ebb and in flow.

I feel my limbs are made glorious by the touch of this world of life.

And my pride is from the life-throb of ages dancing in my blood this moment.

It is brilliant. It is on continuous loop and it gives me hope that tomorrow will be a better day.


But… back to the topic of the post – I tried twice to post the audio file to this blog. Both times WordPress collapsed. And that’s why I have In The Moment.

The tab is where I post stuff as I experience it. Quotes, songs, inspirational videos, creative brilliance, an image from the No on 8 protest, whatever. It is what I experience in that moment. I hope you’ll visit to experience stuff with me¹. And since it is so much simpler to post there, the quick and little stuff will go there – more stuff and more frequently…

1. yes, there’s a feed [↩]

Adjusting to NYC

The Times has an interesting article about new settlers to NYC.

Newcomers suddenly realize either that the city is not working for them or that they are inexorably becoming part of it, or both. They find themselves walking and talking faster.

I went through a lot of the ups and downs after moving to the city, loving it on some days and hating it on most others. Moving from California was emotionally hard – gone were the open spaces, the greenery, the ability to be cocooned in my car as I drove along scenic 280 to work. New York was in my face. All the time. From the moment I stepped out, I was swamped in the sea of humanity. The subway was even worse and the concept of personal space was redefined.

But, much like the article talks about, there was a tipping point – where there was more to love about the city than to dislike. And even the things I disliked, I got used to. I learned to navigate the insane pavements – I got annoyed at the tourists who walked while looking up, shook my head at the newbies who walked three or four-across on the sidewalks; I became comfortable on the subway; I even find the people helpful! In fact, I’m so far gone that I feel pride at how cool the city is and defend it to the nay sayers.

“Every day you encounter situations where you have to step out of your safety zone, and it’s really kind of a self-discovery experience,” she said. “I see myself fighting it, but I also I see myself, every day, becoming a New Yorker.”

And that’s the reality – every day, I see myself becoming more of a New Yorker. And it is a pretty good feeling.

New York is not an alley

This image is just brilliant.

It is from Fred Wilson’s Web 2.0 Expo talk. Created by Gyroxide.

Having lived in Silicon Valley, I concur wholeheartedly. We need a better term. One of the greatest cities in the world is not an “alley” – not in the context of the tech world or in any other dimension.

It is now my desktop background.

Jetsons-style grocery shopping

Each time you’re about to throw away an empty container — for ketchup, cereal, pickles, milk, macaroni, paper towels, dog food or whatever — you just pass its bar code under the scanner. With amazing speed and accuracy, the Ikan beeps, consults its online database of one million products, and displays the full name and description.

In a clear, friendly font, the screen might say: “Nabisco Reduced Fat Ritz Crackers 14.5 Oz.,” for example. Now you can toss the box, content that its replacement has been added to your shopping list.

After a few days of this, you can review the list online at Ikan.net — and if everything looks good, click once to have everything delivered to your house at a time you specify.

Maybe it’s not exactly a Food-a-Rac-a-Cycle. But at least it’s the Netflix of groceries.
State of the Art – Grocery Shopping Made Easy – NYTimes.com

The next revision of this will be a smaller, lighter scanner. When that happens AND when (if?) they integrate with Fresh Direct or Whole Foods, I am SO there.

 

Enjoying the rain

As adults, we don’t enjoy being in the rain. We may say we enjoy the rain, but it is as a distant observer – we ourselves need to be warm, dry and inside to enjoy the cool, wet outside.

I really can’t think of a single time in my adult life that I’ve been stuck in downpour and enjoyed it.

Well, all that changed last night. I had to head out to run some errands. It had rained all afternoon and so I convinced myself that it couldn’t possibly rain anymore (er, what?!) and head out blithely without an umbrella. Finished grocery shopping at Whole Foods and headed out to discover the torrential rain coming down.

After standing under the awning and whining with other shoppers about how we forgot our umbrellas, I realized I couldn’t remember the last time I voluntarily got drenched… and had fun doing it.

So, I ensured my bag with phone and iPod was firmly closed and I stepped out from under the awning and crossed the street. I was soaked by the time I got to the other end. But I didn’t melt.

And by the time I got to the next block, I was having a great time. As I happily walked along, people standing in storefronts would smile and laugh. I just smiled back and enjoyed a leisurely walk home. It was brilliant. I was completely soaked through, but it was an awesome feeling! A warm shower and hot tea were perfect to round out my evening.

Growing up has many advantages, but when did I become so uptight that I couldn’t truly experience the rain anymore? I would encourage everyone to let go a little and play in the rain – at least once a decade!

New York’s message: have a rich life

Paul Graham’s article about cities focuses on Cambridge, Silicon Valley and New York. Each city, according to Graham, sends a message:

Cambridge says “you should be smarter” – it is the city of intellect, the city of ideas.

Silicon Valley says “you should be more powerful” – it is the city of startups.

New York says “you should make more money” – it is the city of wealth/finance.

I’ve had the good fortune of living in all three places and I disagree with Paul about his take on New York (I also have a quibble about Silicon Valley, but we’ll get to that).

Cambridge definitely has the intellectual vibe. You feel it everywhere you go. But Cambridge is tiny. TINY. Once I graduated, I moved out of Cambridge and it was a completely different story. Davis Square is where Tufts is. It should be diverse, but every evening as I walked home from the T¹, old white men sitting on their porches would stare at me as if I were from Mars. I’d walk by thinking “Come on, people! It is 1997!!! What’s so unusual about a brown chick?!” Then there’s Boston. Can you say homogeneous?? Even if it had every smart person in the world, I hope I don’t have to live there again.

Silicon Valley is wonderful. I spent seven incredible years there. And it is definitely about startups. But it is not just about power. It is also about money – where more money puts you higher on the status totem pole. A lot of discussions in Silicon Valley² are about who made how much by selling to which company at the right time. And even if the crass component of “how much” someone made is not front and center, it is hovering in the wings. The infinitely more elegant “he’s done”³ is a commonly heard phrase.

And now we come to New York. I’ll be honest – when I moved here from Silicon Valley, I was quite miserable⁴. I missed California – the attitude, the people, the work, the weather, the calm, the space… everything. But as I spent more time in NYC, the more I started to enjoy it.

Yes, New York has its share of finance “neanderthals in suits”, but you really don’t have to see any of them if you don’t want to. In NYC, I can go days or weeks without having a conversation about technology if I so choose. And I’ve gone 5 years without having a single conversation about finance. In Silicon Valley, even the accountants and lawyers work for tech companies! In NYC, I meet people who have never heard of Twitter, Skype, TechCrunch or Valleywag. These people are dancers, artists, museum curators, actors, yoga instructors, photographers, architects… and that’s just in my building!! And none of these people are focused on making more money – they are focused on making an impact on their field – on being the best dancer/artist/curator/actor/yoga instructor/photographer/architect that they can be. I don’t know where Paul lived, but I have never felt like finance people are crawling all over NYC. Not once.

Professionally, my life in NYC has been about film and technology. There are some great startups in this city and every day, I see more being formed. And NYC is the indie film capital of the country with one of the best film schools in the world.

Personally, I’ve been privileged to go to the finest museums in the world – The Met, MoMA, Whitney and Guggenheim, attend stunning opera and ballet, watch free concerts in the park, eat at some of the best restaurants in the world, visit art galleries that are discovering wonderful new talent, listen to leading classical artists from India and the rest of the world perform here, attend lectures by Nobel Laureates, and take some wonderful classes in writing and film.

New York really has almost everything you can ask for. And because of its variety, it allows you to tailor your experience of it. You could see New York as just the artistic capital of the world, or just the culinary capital of the world, or just the indie film capital of the world. Or, as Paul did, the finance capital of the world.

And to me that says that New York is an incredibly diverse, incredibly interesting city. To someone who is open to the wealth⁵ of diversity that New York has to offer, to someone who is willing to sample the different facets, the city’s message is loud and clear – you should have a rich life!

1. the Tube, Boston’s subway system [↩]
2. This article and this one both capture the wealth focus of Silicon Valley [↩]
3. Implying they are set for life and need never work another day [↩]
4. In fact, back then, R would never have believed I could write a post like this [↩]
5. Pun intended [↩]

Opera – in a theater near you

Watching an opera at The Met is an incredible experience. But not everyone lives in New York. This past year was the second season where people could watch the operas, live, in theaters.

The Met’s transmissions of eight live performances to movie theaters reached 908,000 people, more than the total number who attended performances at the house this season (about 850,000). The transmissions do not yet earn a profit, but they do pay for themselves, Mr. Gelb said, through ticket sales and rebroadcasts on public television.

The 2007-08 season showed in theaters in the US and in many countries around the world.

This is a wonderful way for The Met to increase participation. Opera can be viewed as stuffy, old-school and inaccessible. Showing it in movie theaters at a reasonable ticket price ($22 in the US), allows people to check it out without too much of a commitment. It also allows opera lovers around the world to access the performances.

The next step is to stream the performances online. The movie theater screenings in the US (including three theaters in NYC and one in Long Island) did not reduce the attendance at The Met at all -

Against that background and the national economic downturn, the Met has some encouraging box-office figures. The company sold 88 percent of the house this season, an 11.3 percent increase from two years ago. Out of a total of 219 performances, 127 (58 percent) sold out, up from 10 percent in 2005-6, Joseph Volpe’s final season as general manager, and 40 percent last season, Mr. Gelb’s first.

Those who are able to attend a live performance at Lincoln Center (time, location, money), will certainly continue to do that. There is no way a movie theater or a computer screen can replace that experience. The Met could charge a fee for viewing the performances online if streaming for free is too hard to swallow. That initiative could bring The Met a whole new group of followers who are much more likely to buy tickets if they are in New York during the season.

I certainly hope that Mr. Gelb is willing to be that bold.

_{Quotes from this NY Times article}

On wanting and happiness

Once our choice set has been expanded to include things that we never dreamed of that are gloriously better than what we have, it’s very tough for us to be content with the things that used to give us pleasure.

While the article is about real estate in Manhattan, the statement holds true for most things in life.

Coveting Thy Neighbor’s Condo – New York Times

Congestion Pricing Plan nixed

The plan that could have made Manhattan more livable was nixed in Albany.

Mr. Bloomberg and his supporters — including a vast array of civic environmental organizations, as well as key city officials like the City Council speaker, Christine C. Quinn, and other elected officials — viewed the proposal as a farsighted and essential step toward the city’s future growth. But the plan was strongly opposed by a broad array of politicians from Queens, Brooklyn, and New York’s suburbs, who viewed the proposed congestion fee as regressive and Manhattan-centric.

So instead the people who actually live in Manhattan need to continue to suffer?! The city should be a world leader. But the infrastructure is crumbling. This plan was critical to allowing the city to absorb more people and was supported by multiple environmental groups.

Some version of this plan has to come back for the city to survive and thrive.

Why Do the Wives Stand There, Next to Their Men?

NY Times:

Some of the Internet chatter on Tuesday suggested that Ms. Wall Spitzer’s silent presence at her husband’s side represented a dark day for feminism, with one writer railing, “Someone needs to tell his wife that ‘stand by your man’ does not apply here!!! … She needs to have some pride.”

But others turned the feminist argument on its head, detecting ample sexism in the notion that Ms. Wall Spitzer was dragged to the podium against her wishes.

“To me, a lot of this commentary seems patronizing to her,” said Suzanne B. Goldberg, a professor of law at Columbia University and director of its Sexuality and Gender Law Clinic. “She might have felt this was the best strategy in a terrible situation for protecting her children or her own reputation. We have no basis for assuming that she’s a mere pawn here.”

I agree with the latter perspective. She’s a strong woman and is likely making what she thinks is the right choice for her family.

This post sums it up nicely:

It is one thing to walk out on your husband privately, another in a public forum.  I give Silda a huge amount of credit for standing up their on the podium with her husband.  Time will tell what decisions she makes for her future and her childrens but I am not sure you can do anything after 25 years but step back and be very methodical.  After all, her husband certainly hadn’t been thinking with his head.  Believe me, I’d leave but it would be so incredibly painful that I am not sure I would be willing to not stand by my man, for my children, at least for the moment.

[Updated] And here’s Charlie’s take on it – LOL!!

Dear Future Wife (Whoever she may be)

If you should discover that, after decades of marriage and a meteoric career, I have spent $80k on high priced hookers, please dump my ass…

…right on the street…

…in public…

…right in the middle of my press conference.
Do not be supportive.  I do not deserve it.

Do not keep my kids around me.  They’d be better off if I wasn’t around.

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