Ahead of the Trend As Per Usual: Making Lists

Here at LowConcept, we* are always ahead of the curve. Very avant-garde, vanguard, very bleeding edge. For all these reasons and more, we (ok, I. I can't keep up this second person charade for more than a sentence) continue to be an excellent online source of art, culture, trends and new media.

Hah.

Still, last winter, I was attending spoken-word events, lectures, debates, readings and panel discussions before the NY Times wrote about it. And now, the Wall Street Journal has picked up on my list-making savvy. Indeed, I am not crazy - I am at the forefront of a new organizational trend. Normally I don't post full text articles, but since WSJ isn't free, I've saved you the trouble below.

The Way We List Now

In today's harried society, maintaining 'to do' lists has become a competitive sport, inspiring an array of new products. Katherine Rosman on how to avoid becoming a slave to them.

By KATHERINE ROSMAN
September 29, 2006; Page W1

Let's jot down a few reasons why lists are the defining organizing principle of the 21st century.

• In the era of Google, Wikipedia and TiVo there is too much information and content and not enough time.
• Mothers leaving executive jobs to stay home with their children are embracing corporate time-management techniques to run their households.
• As BlackBerry usage eradicates complete sentences, items that can be quickly ticked off have become the accepted shorthand.
• In a post-Sept. 11, post-Hurricane Katrina world, people see lists as a way to prepare for inevitable disasters.

A range of companies, including Amazon.com, book publishers, stationery makers and Internet sites, are pushing new products aimed at the growing appetite for list-making. Within the next year, publishing houses will roll out at least eight books of lists. One will feature images of nearly 300 food-shopping lists that were found near supermarkets around the country. Others include a memoir culled completely from one woman's collected to-do lists, and "Mountain Man Dance Moves: The McSweeney's Book of Lists," a compilation of satirical lists like "The Collected Apologies of Lawrence H. Summers, President of Harvard."

Major media companies are funding, buying and starting up list-centric Web sites. Next week, Barry Diller's IAC/InterActiveCorp will launch a beta version of Very Short List (veryshortlist.com), an email newsletter and Internet site dedicated to quick recommendations of media and culture. Amazon.com is funding a company that runs several list sites, including allconsuming.net (where people catalog the books, movies and music they own) and 43things.com (where users list up to 43 things they want to do before they die). On the networking Web site Consumating, which was bought last year by CNET Networks, users' main profiles consist of a simple list of adjectives and interests, also called tags. "It's a succinct way of explaining to someone who you are," says Ben Brown, the site's founder.

Looking for Order

Several factors are feeding the commercial growth: Lists are a cheap, fast way for publishers and Internet sites to generate new content -- especially online, where users are often creating the lists themselves. As consumers face more ways to spend their time and money, companies hope their bullet-point, short-attention-span offerings will appeal to even the most time-starved. Lists also offer order, real or perceived, in a chaotic world. "People have a hunger for patterns and order and stability in a rapidly changing world," says Ben Dattner, a professor of organizational psychology at New York University.

Executives often manage by lists. Bob Cancalosi, the chief learning officer for GE Healthcare, a division of General Electric, keeps "microlists" for daily tasks, which he constantly compares to his "mothership list" about the company's management philosophies and goals. Individual projects get their own lists -- for one leadership class, he writes a 450-item checklist 125 days before the event. Weekends are no different. Every Saturday morning, he brews a pot of coffee and makes a list, with items like "buy gallon of milk," "take daughter to piano" and "run three miles." "I think I'm a little anal," he says.

Every Sunday night, Pamela Salzman, a 36-year-old M.B.A. in Los Angeles who worked in marketing and public relations before having kids, says she writes a master list of the errands and obligations she must complete in the coming week. Each morning, she creates a daily list, pulling tasks from the weekly list. Then there is her "major project list" with items such as "reorganize my 2005 photo album," and lists of gifts given, what to do when the kids get sick and a timeline for preparing Thanksgiving dinner. Mrs. Salzman says making lists is a stress-reliever. "When I can see everything in front of me," she says, "it feels like it's more within my control."

Nancy Paul, one of Mrs. Salzman's best friends, has another system, which she credits to her corporate experience. In a small binder she keeps at the ready, Ms. Paul, 40, jots notes on specially designated pages, indicating such things as gifts to buy, people to call and things to tell the interior designer. She also gives the family baby sitter a list of tasks to complete while the children nap, like replacing old markers with new ones. "I graduated from business school, and I use a lot of techniques I learned" there, says Ms. Paul, a former executive at Walt Disney Co. Along with three other close friends, Ms. Paul and Mrs. Salzman discuss, borrow, covet and critique one another's lists. "I wouldn't call it competitive list-making," says Mrs. Salzman. "But it is envious."

Lists, of course, have been around since man put chisel to stone. The British Museum in London houses what is thought to be one of the oldest surviving lists -- it's a menu or grocery list dating back to around 80 A.D. written on a thin wooden tablet in Latin. (Not much has changed: It calls for olive oil and wine.) Historians say the Buddha and Thomas Jefferson were inveterate list makers. Charles Darwin notably wrote one titled "To Wed or Not to Wed" that included one advantage of a wife: "better than a dog anyhow." In the 1970s, "The Book of Lists," covering topics like movies, animals and crime, became a best-seller. A revised edition, "The New Book of Lists," was released last November.

Technology is a big part of what's driving the interest in lists. The new online sites make it possible to maintain and search through giant inventories of content. Apple Computer's iTunes, for example, offers over 3.5 million songs.

This also comes as consumers are overloaded with options. The average Barnes & Noble store holds 100,000 books. In 2005, 549 new films were released, up 5.6% from 2004, according to the Motion Picture Association of America. Netflix has an inventory of 65,000 DVD titles. People are struggling under an unparalleled glut of information and media, says John Warner, editor of the forthcoming book "Mountain Man Dance Moves." "Choice is paralyzing," he says.

Stationery companies are cashing in on the list's new luster. Knock Knock, a company with paper products sold in 5,000 retail outlets, stocks 21 different list-formatted pads this year, representing 22% of the company's year-to-date revenue of $2 million. That's up from eight pads totaling 12% of revenue in 2005. Reading-tool and desk-supply retailer Levenger is counting on "list-building" products as its greatest growth opportunity. Year-to-date sales of its best-selling list product (a $38 pocket-sized leather note-card holder) are up 56% over last year, says Steve Leveen, the company's co-founder and chief executive. "We'd like to be the Starbucks of note-taking and list-making products," he says. Another stationer, MomAgenda, says revenue from notepads with to-do lists doubled in the first nine months of this year over last year. Its top seller: a menu planner affixed with a magnet for display on the refrigerator.

Yet too many lists can cause problems. Grant Newman, a first-year M.B.A. candidate at Duke University, has been making lists since middle school. Each day, he writes "tactical lists" with items like "do problems for statistics" class and "make sure I send Mom a birthday card." He throws away those lists when the tasks are complete. But he holds onto all of his "strategic lists" -- "get into a top M.B.A. program" (mission accomplished!) and "learn Spanish" -- and only occasionally consolidates partially completed lists. The list pileup was the cause of many arguments with Mr. Newman's ex-girlfriend. "His whole dining room table was covered with lists, bills and old newspapers. Just covered," says his ex, Ana Perez, who lives in Chicago. "It was really bad."

It's a good idea to go through lists periodically to knock out unnecessary items, and consolidate as much as possible, organizational experts say. Keep all resource lists in one place -- books to read, museums to visit -- whether it's in a notebook or in a single computer file. And to-do lists shouldn't become endless "mind dumps," says Julie Morgenstern, a New York time-management consultant who advises corporate and individual clients on how to get organized. After writing down what needs to be done, list-makers should identify how long a task will take and when it will be completed. "A 'to do' that is not connected to a 'when' rarely gets done," says Ms. Morgenstern, who has a line of paper day planners coming out next month from FranklinCovey.

As a vast repository of information, the Internet has given rise to many kinds of lists that aim to help consumers make sense of it all: Frequently Asked Questions, the Netflix "queue," craigslist and Amazon.com's Listmania. Social-bookmarking site del.icio.us, which was bought in December by Yahoo, categorizes sites recommended by others, with tags like "interesting" or "oil." Membership on Angie's List -- a clearinghouse of user ratings for service providers in 72 cities nationwide -- has doubled to more than 500,000 in the past year, according to a company spokesman.

Subscribers to the new Very Short List will receive a free daily email with one pick -- such as a book, song, video or movie. The company plans to earn revenue from advertising and other transactions. "People feel they're drowning in choice and are desperate to go into a curated space," says Michael Jackson, IAC's president of programming.

Part of the draw of list sites is voyeuristic. By early next year, Very Short List users should be able to create their own recommendations and share them online. "It's always fascinating to look at someone's list," Mr. Jackson says.

Another site, LibraryThing, allows users to publicly catalog their books and organize titles in multiple ways, such as era, subject matter or genre -- or just browse through other people's libraries. Since LibraryThing launched in August 2005, about 84,000 members have listed almost 5.9 million books.

A growing clutch of Web sites are using lists as a launching pad into the booming social-networking market. The Robot Co-op, a two-year-old company that is wholly funded by Amazon.com, has five list-centric sites on which users can post their own lists and find people with similar tastes and interests -- from books to DVDs to lifetime goals. Its goal-oriented site, 43things.com, had nearly 1.4 million unique visitors in August, more than three times the number in August of last year, according to comScore Media Metrix.

Posting recommendations from other consumers can also appeal to companies looking to replicate the experience of "social shopping," with a little peer pressure mixed in, at home. "If someone else has all of the records that I have, but there is one they have that I don't have, that could induce me to buy," says Patti Freeman Evans, Jupiter Research's senior retail analyst. Jennifer Scully-Lerner, a vice president for private wealth management at Goldman Sachs in Manhattan, considers lists an easy-to-digest language that is compatible with the quick pace of BlackBerry-influenced corporate culture. Ms. Scully-Lerner has become well known at Goldman Sachs for her "Organization List to Prepare for Baby." It recommends buying more than 90 separate items and makes 15 suggestions under the heading "General Notes." The list has been widely circulated throughout her office and beyond.

Using Microsoft Word, Excel, errant scraps of paper and her BlackBerry, Ms. Scully-Lerner makes lists that govern almost every aspect of her life. She has lists of work projects all around her desk. There's a packing list on her closet wall, to simplify the preparations for her frequent business trips. She has emergency lists at home and at work. She keeps lists of books to read, phone calls to make and presents to buy. She also maintains a list of gifts she'd like others to give to her. "My husband tells people it's my purchase order," she says. "I'm a list freak."

Write to Katherine Rosman at katherine.rosman@wsj.com

Pull Outs:

KEEPING ORDER ONLINE

A crop of new Web sites allow people to create and share lists, on everything from a baby's nap schedule to an action-figure collection. Below, five sites that aim to help people get organized.

diyplanner.com
1 Douglas Johnston, a multimedia project manager, founded this site devoted to downloadable paper lists and planning kits while he was living in Newfoundland, Canada. (It was too far to drive to a store for day-planner refill pages.) Available templates include "Goal Planning" and "Checklist." Since the site launched in September 2005, about 800,000 template kits have been downloaded, says Mr. Johnston.

recipething.com
2 Influenced by Web site LibraryThing, RecipeThing (launched three weeks ago by a husband-and-wife team) allows home cooks to enter and organize their recipes by tags like vegetarian or tailgating -- and access those of others. So far, 800 users have added 2,014 recipes.

squirl.info
3 On this site, introduced last month, nearly 1,000 people have logged lists of their collectibles, including records, "Star Wars" action figures and autographed copies of Sports Illustrated. Co-founder John McGrath says that he plans to integrate an option allowing users to sell their items at online auction houses.
.
tadalist.com
4 Ta-Da allows users to create online to-do lists that can be shared, free of charge. For project collaboration, several users can access the same tasks and check off items as they're accomplished. The site was launched in January of 2005, and in the last year, users have added 1.4 million to-dos.

trixietracker.com
5 After maintaining a blog for three years that listed his baby's feedings, sleep patterns and dirty diapers, Ben MacNeill of Chapel Hill, N.C., created software for other new parents to do the same. (A subscription costs $14.95 for three months.) Since the site's launch in March 2006, members have logged more than 100,000 naps.

READING LISTS

At least eight publishers plan to release books about lists in the next year. Here are five titles in the works.

"Milk Eggs Vodka: Grocery Lists Lost and Found"
HOW/May 2007
After finding a discarded grocery list outside a supermarket 10 years ago, St. Louis-based photographer Bill Keaggy began a collection, and he now has more than 1,000. His book is divided into chapters, like lists that seem to be for party preparations (chips, salsa, beer, paper plates) and "sad lists," some of which include a lot of medications.

"Things to Bring, S#it to Do... and other inventories of anxiety"
Stewart, Tabori & Chang/September 2006
Writer Karen Rizzo compiled this memoir after she discovered her father's boxes full of old lists -- and realized a list can say a lot about a person. Her book reprints some of her own, including a to-do list from October 1989 with items like: "new black Reebok sneaks" and "toss everything with shoulder pads." A November 1993 list entitled "I must read before I get married" includes Dante's "Inferno" and "Crime and Punishment."

"To-Do List"
Simon & Schuster/October 2007
Sasha Cagen, the former editor of the defunct To-Do List magazine, is editing this compilation, which includes a color-coded accounting of 69 people one woman had amorous relations with and how to start your own church. "They're even more revealing than a diary entry," she says. "They're written about what people want in a way that's not very self-conscious."

"Trivia Lovers' Lists of Nearly Everything in the Universe"
Random House Reference/October 2006
This is Barbara Ann Kipfer's 15th book on lists, which will weigh in at 656 pages -- she is the author of "14,000 Things to Be Happy About" and "The Wish List." She has also worked up lists of synonyms: She's the editor of "Roget's International Thesaurus (Sixth Edition)" and "Roget's 21st Century Thesaurus."

"Your Personal Assistant"
ReganBooks/TBD
Barbara Guggenheim has managed a bicoastal career -- she is an art consultant with offices in New York and Los Angeles -- and a marriage to a member of the Hollywood power structure -- her husband is attorney Bert Fields -- by keeping lists. She plans to publish 300 of them, with co-author Nadine Schiff, along with a CD-ROM to download and edit each one.

_______________________
*I.

Clocks in My Life That Do Not Agree

Microwave at work: 3:20

Phone at work: 3:35

My cell phone: 3:29

My watch: 3:33

My laptop: 3:34

I'm sure my stereo at home thinks it's 2pm, as it loses a few seconds every time I switch the power on and off. Don't even get me started on the cable box.


You know what this is? A vintage draft that I had buried in my drafts folder since May 10 of this year. I decided to breathe a little life in it, though it's as irrelevant as it ever. It may not be eloquently written, but it's still true.

CoffeeCoffeeCoffee

No, I got over my coffee/caffeine problem years ago. But my cafe/coffee shop problem? Why, I think it's just beginning.

In that moleskin notebook of mine, I made a list of things that I enjoy doing that I would like to do more often. Being an honorable person, I am now going through that list and trying to act on all of my ideas.

One of those items is wasting space in coffee shops... while I make more lists and plan my destiny.

I have always enjoyed spending time in coffee shops, or cafes, if you will. However, it seems like I never can find a good time or an appropriate activity in which to engage while taking up time and space at a cafe. In high school, I did not live near any coffee places (or live near anything, really). Taking the train into NYC to sit in a cafe wasn't worth the effort - though I had several friends who would do just that. In college, it seemed as though I had a bit too much work to make a fun activity out of it. I compartmentalized my time - I could work faster in the library or in my room and I chose to spend my social time in other ways.

But now I have NO EXCUSES. I've done plenty of exciting things in NYC these past 10 months, but they've been very social - bars, restaurants, a few concerts and some lovely outdoor events. I need to carve out some quiet time for myself, to plan, to think, to create. Now that I also have some light laptop work to do - typing up some notes from Burning Man, essay writing and studying - I'm all set.

Now I just need an appropriate venue. Sure, there are Starbucks open until 11pm or later on every corner, but like everyone else in this city, I seek a coffee place with character. (I'll wait while you throw up in your mouth a little bit.) I know that I could easily sit in an all-night diner, but I'd prefer somewhere cozier that serves something other than bottomless, burning-the-midnight-oil coffee. I want to enjoy my coffee house experience. I also work until around 6pm, so any place that closes at 8pm or earlier doesn't accommodate my buttoned-down business person schedule.

- McNally Robinson Bookstore on Prince between Lafayette and Mulberry - houses a tea house open until 10pm

- THINK Coffee on Mercer between 3rd and 4th open until midnight

- Theeee Coffee Chamber or whatever it's called on Bleecker between Lafayette and Broadway open until 11pm

- Housing Works on Crosby between Houston and Prince also looks great, but it closes at 8pm.

- Taralucci e Vino on 18th between 5th and Broadway is close to my apartment and open until 11pm, but I'm not sure they'd be thrilled with a laptop and several books.

Of course, I'm taking suggestions! Preferably below 14th Street, north of Canal, and, for now, in Manhattan. Perhaps I'll take the Brooklyn plunge next month, as I have a feeling that there are dozens of places over there that meet my qualifications.

If you suggest a coffee place that I visit, you are invited to join me for a cup of coffee, gratis.

Oh, the Places You'll Go!

I always thought that adventures were supposed to be serendipitous.

The attitude? Devil-may-care! The plans? Nonexistent!

Not so in 2006, apparently. It seems as though everything has an application deadline a year before it begins, or else it requires far, far more money than I have. Planning an adventure so far in advance seems contrary to the spirit of adventure itself.

Still, there are adventures - and accompanying lists - in the works. Though they may not take place until a year from now, I'm trying to lock them in.

Any general suggestions for adventures are most welcome.

Criteria: Eastern hemisphere, partially funded/paid, constructive experience, three week and up duration, no language skills required at the onset.

Where are Those Darn Haiku?!

I promise you a weekly feature, and then I fail to deliver the goods for almost a month? I know. I am truly sorry.

Unfortunately, this past weekend wasn't particularly riveting. But here's nothing -

Open the Partition

Gossip in the air -
Twice-a-year Jews; only on
The high holy days

Bestchester Social

Driving on dark roads
Change of pace from New York Rush
Dogs, beer and fresh air

Beyond

Internet searches -
Emails, tours, dreams, books, advice.
Who should I become?

Processes

I am not a professional writer. I'm barely an amateur writer. As I've mentioned before, I'm more along the lines of a "talentless hack," but let's not start pointing fingers.

Still, there is a method to my madness and I do have a bit of a process associated with creating these blog entries. It's changed over time and it may change again shortly, so I thought I would lift the veil and let you know how I work. It's not really that interesting, but I'd like to have a record for myself, in case I change my mind again.

I've always enjoyed writing. I love the creative process, but I cannot draw or successfully wield any other artistic implement save for the metaphorical pen. (I've also been told I take decent photographs, but I doubt anyone will ever pin a Pulitzer on my nose.) Writing enables me to create with my mind instead of my hands. I became a student of history in college and earned my grades based on my words. At one point, I thought I might become a journalist - until I realized that I simply did not enjoy writing for my college's (very professional, resume-enhancing) newspaper. It was probably my mistake for selecting the "fun" weekend magazine instead of the news beat, but then again, it was a mistake I could have corrected.

After college, I wrote cover letters until I became employed and then, I took a break. Eventually, the muse called in the form of blogs belonging to individuals whom I admired. I started LowConcept in April. When I first started blogging, I anticipated reposting a few hilarious emails that I'd written to my friends - the kind that cause those friends to say, "you should start a blog!" I ultimately decided against reposting, mainly because those emails were meant for the four sets of eyes that initially received them - and no one else.

From May through August, I formulated entries by observing my world, jotting down a few notes in the drafts folder on Blogger, and crafting entries four or so days later. Letting the ideas percolate usually made my work better - the prime example of this time lapse being "The Secret of the Ooze." I put my hand in snot on 5th Avenue about a week before I wrote that, and the entry ended up being very well received.

Since Burning Man and the other changes in my life, my posts have been much more stream-of-consciousness. It's unclear whether they appear that way to my readers, but I started the Peter Pan post and the Coat post with very different ideas of where they would finish - and I'd only come up with those middling ideas minutes before posting. Though I enjoy this sort of off-the-cuff posting, there is less mental editing involved and the posts tend to be longwinded and lacking in direction.

Just like this post.

Why might the process change? Well, I'm not as funny when I'm ranting and rambling. And that's no fun. Furthermore, I'm concerned that by writing about what I'm thinking about at work, I'm missing the more interesting, more developed issues that may not be called to mind in front of a computer. I guarantee that I think more interesting thoughts when I'm on a boat, or in a park, or walking the gritty streets of New York than when I am in my cubicle.

To combat that sort of transient forgetfulness, I have invested $20 in a moleskin notebook. I own dozens of spiral notebooks, day planners, legal pads, hotel pads and other assorted paper nonsense. But I've made a conscious decision to use this one for long-term goals and those fleeting ideas that hit you while walking across the Brooklyn Bridge - the ones that you can never seem to remember once you reach Grimaldi's pizza on the other side.

The Icy Cold Hand of Death is Waiting with Your Coat

That's right, it's officially cold in New York City.

I officially do not want to get out of bed in the morning.

I officially do not want to go outside for lunch.

I am officially annoyed that I need to wear a jacket outdoors.

Let me take a step back. Not all of the above entirely is true. I generally like fall - though I mentioned last week, I'm starting to like it less and less every year.

I never really want to get out of bed in the morning. Except in the summer, when I wake up sweaty and gross because someone turned the AC off in the middle of the night. That's no fun, either.

I'll keep going outside for lunch until frogs start falling from the sky. I like getting out of my office.

I like light fall jackets, but not winter coats. I hate having a coat when I am at a concert, a bar or a restaurant when there's no good place to put it.

Coats galore. None of them are mine.

I take issue with coats. Perhaps I should move to LA or someplace equally warm all year 'round - but it's not that I dislike seasons or cold weather. I merely dislike coats.

As a teenager, I had two winter coats. I had a crazy puffy down functional coat that made me look like a blue marshmallow, and a funny zippered together Columbia number with a denim outer shell and a fleece inner lining. Problem was, neither of these coats, nor their component parts, went with any clothing I owned. Dressy or casual, school or play, I wore the same awkward uniform because of the weather. Coats ruin outfits.

Time passed and in late high school, I acquired my first black pea coat. It was a huge step in the right direction - it hit at the knee and avoiding clashing with my clothing because it covered most of it. It was black. I could wear it with different scarves. But it was a bit shapeless, as my mother encouraged me to buy it a size too big so that I could wear light jackets or heavy sweaters underneath it. I retained the puffy Eastern Mountain Sports marshmallow for Boston's special "ice flying in your face" days. Ah, memories.

I still have the pea coat, though it's going on seven years old come this New Years. I may invest in a new, slightly more stylish version in a month or so. I understand - if one has many coats, they become a matching accessory. But coats are expensive and I'm a bit too practical to rack up debt on fashion items, or anything at all. Coats that enable outfits are too expensive.

Aside from coats' effect on my appearance, they affect my interactions with the world. My purses do not stay on my shoulder as easily when they are hampered by a bulky coat sleeve. More importantly, coats create a problem when they are removed. At a restaurant, or much worse, a bar or a concert, they become another thing to hold, to leave on the floor, or to hang up on a post with everyone else's coat.

I a huge fan of coat checks, as they partially solve this problem. Though coat checks are often overpriced, they're cheaper than drycleaning, or worse, a new coat. However, coat checks also have lines. Wait in line for 10 minutes to drop the coat off, and perhaps wait 20 to retrieve it? And you're still charging me $3 plus tip? Sigh. Coats create excess baggage.

I know everyone is just going to tell me to move to San Francisco, where I could wear light, stylish jackets all year. But then I wouldn't get my hot sweaty New York summers.

Anyone have any bicoastal job ideas?

Work from Work

You heard it hear first. The get-rich-quick scheme of the new millenium. Brought to you courtesy of my friend Desert Boy Gaz, as of mid-August.

"But I already work at work!" I hear you cry. No, you don't really work at work. You read NYTimes.com, Gawker and obviously, my blog.

In fact, many of you may already be working from work unknowingly! The horror.

Ever get a phone call from a friend wandering the streets of New York while you are at work, in front of your computer screen? Ever look up movie times/ATM locations/directions/subway stops/restaurants for that friend?

Work from work, people. Now imagine if you got paid for that service. It's genius.

Happy International Talk Like a Pirate Day/Birthday to Me!

I know. It's all over the internet. Stories of that famed day when I was born.

No, of course not. No, I mean International Talk Like a Pirate Day.
Dear readers, your presence on a blog, even casually, means that you should have some degree of familiarity with the internet. Thus, this pirate nonsense should be no surprise. The internet invented it. Or something. Feel free to peruse the website and read the entire story - I'm going to tell you what pirates mean to me.


In all honesty, I was never a big fan of pirates as a child. I was a *huge* fan of Peter Pan, though, and since Captain Hook, a famed pirate, was his enemy, he was certainly no friend of mine. My first Halloween costume was a Peter Pan costume - I believe I wore it for three years, from ages two through four. When I was three, I remember watching and listening to the Mary Martin Broadway album. I would listen to the album on my grandmother's record player and jump off of her sofas, pretending that I could fly. I was an excellent flier, too - I never fell or got hurt. I don't even think I was ever yelled at by my parents or grandparents.* I loved the Disney cartoon, too, but the lame "You Can Fly" song was far, far inferior to the fantastic score of the musical. "I Won't Grow Up?" "I'm Flying?" "Oh, my Mysterious Lady?" Fantastic. And I don't even like showtunes.

I suppose conventional wisdom would dictate that the Peter Pan love affair must have constituted some deep desire never to grow up, or to fly away from my problems, but I really can't recall ever feeling that way. I was always anxious to get to the next grade in school, to do things on my own, and to learn more about the world. I always believed that one could grow up without losing sight of childhood pleasures or dreams - and I still do. Your path may not turn out exactly as you imagined it, but you may still reach the milestones you desire by another route. While it may be more difficult to enjoy wearing one's pajamas - or lack thereof - all day while holding down an office job, that's what weekends - and eventual freelance work - are for. You get what you want, it merely happens in a different way than it did in the past.

So while Peter Pan's obsession with eternal carefree youth never got to me, his broken promise to Wendy did. At the end of the story, when Wendy, John and Michael return home to London with Peter and the Lost Boys, Peter refuses to stay. However, he promises to come back for Wendy every year to take her to visit Neverland, "to do his spring cleaning and sew his pockets." Sometimes I wish the story ended there, with Wendy full of hope for Peter's promised annual return.

But Peter isn't a man of his word - and that's the point. He isn't a man, he is a child who forgets - and he hurts the one person who cared for him exactly as he was. When Peter finally returns to the nursery, Wendy is, "ever so much more than twenty," with a child of her own. He cries pitifully when he finds out that she can no longer accompany him to Neverland. But as soon as he meets her daughter, Jane, he laughs, smiles and spirits the young girl away to Neverland in place of her mother. While I think that Peter does right by taking Jane to visit Neverland (because really, who wouldn't want to go?), I was always bothered by the way he was able to walk away from Wendy as if she had never meant anything to him.

I suppose it wouldn't have been as good a story - nor one that provoked this impromptu blog post that was supposed to be about my drunken pirate birthday party junior year of college - if Peter had visited Wendy every spring and they had grown while maintaining the youthful happiness that brought them together. It's a sad story, and truthfully, one that I haven't cared to watch in a very long time.

Post Script

In case you're wondering, yes, I have read the original book by JM Barrie, but it was the movie that stuck in my mind as a child. I also "Finding Neverland," with Johnnie Depp. I also applaud Mr. Depp's continued pirate-friendly career moves.

________________________
*We lived with my grandparents in Westchester for a year when we moved back to New York from Houston, TX - land of my birth and my residence for the first two years of my life. And Westchester was where we stayed.

The Most Mediocre Bar in all of Manhattan

On Friday, I went to what I believe may be the saddest bar in all of Manhattan. No, it wasn't empty. No, it wasn't in a depressed neighborhood. No, it wasn't dirty or falling apartment or even forgotten. But I believe its middling status is even worst than achieving an extreme of worst, let alone best.

Moran's on Washington street, at Rector Street, sits on the ground floor of a faux gothic stone building. Just off West Street, it sits in a neighborhood that was probably once occupied by office buildings, but is now comprised of a parking garage, a liquor store, a questionable lingerie shop, a few convenience stores and a couple of trendier bars. It is truly the forgotten child of its block.

I went to Moran's alone last Friday at 6:30pm, for a work even with people from the downtown office. After exiting the 1 train at Rector Street, I walked past it twice before realizing that the unfriendly wooden doors housed my destination. Once inside, I was greeted by dim yellow lighting broken only by flickers of unseasonal Christmas lights. The ceiling was low, the tables were covered in inappropriately formal white clothes, and the chairs were reminiscent of a 50s era Catskills banquet hall. It smelled musty, like an attic that hadn't felt fresh air in twenty five years. I blinked as my pupils grew to accommodate the low light, and found my colleagues.

They were seated at a faceless table against the wall, around a basket of nondescript snack mix crumbs. (I assume they had eaten most of it by the time I had arrived.) The waitress came by to take my order. She had a vaguely Irish brogue, though my unsophisticated ear couldn't tell if it was real or affected for the "Irish Pub" atmosphere of Moran's. At least the beer list was reasonable. I ordered a Yuengling, as I felt its tried-but-true status might inspire love for this ghost of a bar.

After my beer arrived, I took another look around. The room was medium sized, but narrow relative to its depth - not unusual proportions for an old New York City building. The dark wooden bar and its accompanying round mushroom stools occupied most of the right side of the room and more squat tabled ran along the left and cluttered the rear. There were no more than three clumps of three or four patrons at tables and a few singletons at the bar. Most drank beer. Most seemed to be the secretaries-in-sneakers type of individual, catching a happy hour drink at a bar on a Friday before heading home. I believe there was music - early 90s dance music if I recall correctly. Signs staying "Merlot by the glass" and "Cabernet by the glass" decorated the walls between the Christmas lights. When I visited the bathroom, it featured two stalls crammed in enough space for one and a pungent smell. I had truly found the land that time forgot.

Thankfully, the conversation at my table was better than my surroundings. Depending on my mood, I hope we go somewhere slightly less surreal next time.

PS - Sorry about Friday. I was actually working up until the minute I left for Moran's. And for those of you still waiting for my Burning Man finale, I promise it to you this week.

Nothing to Contribute to the Working World

I fear this may be one of those awful "I have nothing to blog about," blog posts. But I'm decently good at free association, so we'll see what comes. I should add that I just typed and had to delete "I have nothing to love." I'm so emo. The discontinuity is that I have plenty to say, but nothing to blog about, as blogging is supposed to interest you, my dear readers.

I always feel important when the weather matches my mood so nicely. It was a stunning fall day last Saturday and it seems as though my world has been drenched in rain ever since. At least it isn't too cold yet. I miss my humid, gritty, hot concrete summer.

I used to love fall during college - everyone came back to campus, friendships were renewed and life started anew. This year and last it's been a bit of a downer - way past bittersweet. I've been acutely aware of the sun's descent into the lower regions of the sky. The shortening of the days bring hot chocolate and pumpkin pie season, but I can only think about how New York City is going to be full of puddles and I won't be able to sit in Bryant Park during my lunch hour anymore.

Can you keep a secret?

I think it's time for grad school.

I'll try and bring the funny back next week, folks, I promise.

Finally, some shameless self promotion:

This Tuesday, September 19 is my birthday.

And I think you know what I really want.

Burning Man Pictures

I have received my Burning Man pictures from the three disposable cameras that I finished (I still have half a fourth camera that I need to shoot off). Here is a selection of my favorite images. I'll try and post them all on Flickr eventually and send out an email to those of you who attended with me.

Miles of Sky



A view of the tents, mountains and endless sky that I enjoyed for a week.


The Waffle House



Built by Belgians, its name changed from something far more serious, to the Belgian waffle house, to simply the Waffle house. It was tremendously large, as you can see by the tiny people inside.


Distant Man Through the Dust



A view of the Man of Burning Man, through an intense dust storm. Likely taken through my goggles and dust mask.


The Man



A crisp view of the Man atop his platform. Indeed, the sky is still blue.


Random Robot



A typical art exhibit in the middle of the playa. Probably my favorite photo of the ones I took.


Temple




Burning Man features a spiritual center, a sort of temple, pictured here. Photo taken by MS.


Barbie Death Camp and Wine Bistro



A theme camp that I particularly enjoyed.


It was Tie Tastic



Sometimes I make jokes that only I find funny. This car was tie-tastic!


Life-Size Kaleidoscope



Featuring a view of the human hand, belonging to the Duchess.


Roving Cupcakes



Costumes? Art Cars? Awesome. The Duchess is on the left, I am on the right (wearing my Freudian slip, no less). Note the porta potties in the background. Photo taken by ZAS.


Fat People



A brilliant group costume idea. They'd surround unknowing individuals and shout "snaack!!"


Group Photo




Our camp, known as Camp Bamboozled, Camp In the Out Hole, Camp Anal Toad, and really, anything else that struck our fancy during the week. See if you can spot me near the middle. The fuzz you see in the photo is either dust on the lens or dust in the air. Photo taken by MS.

Sea Change

Fall always seems to herald change, whether I want it or not. Hence my unplanned absence from the world yesterday.

Ben and I are no longer seeing each other. I will continue writing and I do not intend to change the tone or subject matter of the blog. Still, I make no promises for an undetermined grace period.

I will review the Burning Man updates I posted last week and see if there is anything else that I need to add. There are still a few passages that I need to add to my handwritten journal before the memories fade as well, so together we shall work against time. Also, many of my pictures are back so I should be able to display a few concrete vistas.

I look forward to seeing all of you at the various dates and times that we have planned.

Desert Days

You really have no idea how difficult it is to write about Burning Man. I even kept a written log, designed to help preserve my memories and to facilitate blogging. Still, it defies words.

As I alluded yesterday, the surface of the Black Rock desert is known as the playa. "Playa" literally means beach in Spanish, but in this case, it refers to a dry, alkali lake bed. The sediments from the ancient lake have since settled to give it a high pH. The playa is inhospitable to plant, animals, and really, to people. Because of its alkali tendencies, playa silt has the ability to cause chemical burns on one's skin. Don't worry, most people, including myself, aren't that sensitive to it if it's washed off about once a day.

Combine the threatening playa with thin air, intense heat during the day, chilling cold at night, no cell phone service or planes flying over your head and the result is essentially Martian. As I mentioned yesterday, we arrived in the dark and eventually left in the dark. You wouldn' t have a hard time convincing me that we actually drove through a portal that led to Mars, or perhaps the moon.

But I have it on good faith that I was still on earth. The most salient feature of Burning Man was, to me, the people that I met there and the community that I encountered. The journey to the middle of the desert is so arduous and expensive that only those individuals who really care to go show up. Everyone is friendly. It's like NYC, when the crazy people talk to on the subway - only they're not crazy. They work at biotech companies. They are artists from Seattle. They drove across the country from New Jersey in 3 days in a schoolbus, stopping only for gas.

Not only are they friendly, they want to give you things. Buttons, stickers, candy, alcohol, doughnuts, hotdogs, glowsticks, hugs...you name it. It's sometimes called a gift economy - once you enter the gates of the city, you cannot buy or sell anything, save for ice and coffee at center camp. To my great surprise, gifting did not mean bartering - people actually gave things without expecting anything in return.

Another point of note about the people - many of them are in costume and quite a few are naked. Is it weird at first? A little. But it's not a sexualized nudity, it's more of a freedom of expression nudity. Despite the flesh, I saw fewer public displays of affection than I do on the streets of New York. A few hugs, yes, but very little face-eating. The costumes are less Halloween, dressed as a particular person (the girl from the 5th element) or thing (a standup comic...dare I say wall?), and more "radical self expression." (Figured out the buzz phrase for Burning Man yet?) Bright colors prevail and at night, big shoes and furry hats take the scene to keep out the cold on the dance floor. Did I mention that 40,000 people attend?

Perhaps more this weekend. I can only write so much a day.

Overstimulation

There is just so much to write about Burning Man. And I can't even blog about it in full, as you really aren't here to read about my vacation. You're here to giggle when I make snarky remarks about New York City. But it's my blog and I can babble if I want to. I'll try to keep it short and snappy. I also may post in installments. Really, you have no choice in the matter.

Aside from the overstimulation of my trip, there's the overstimulation of civilization, technology and the internet now that I have returned. I haven't returned a Netflix in two weeks. I am hopelessly behind on news and personal blogs. Against my will, I read through the entire week and a day of Gawker that I had missed. I managed to do some laundry last night; grocery shopping has yet to occur. But I digress.

Two Saturdays ago, I left my beloved New York City, land of cell phones on the streets, lattes on the subway, and pain for gain beauty for the frigid fog of San Francisco. The Duchess relocated there last January and has picked up many vices, including car ownership. She met Patel and myself at SFO airport and we embarked on a two day shopping extravaganza to arm ourselves for a week in the desert. We spent Saturday joyriding around, picking up old mattresses on the street for desert lounging. Sunday found us big box retail hopping between Target, Costco and the Home Depot, with a little camping goods and hippie food shopping in between.

The most difficult aspect of shopping was by far the food. Max, my dear friend who had convinced so many of us to wither away in an alkali dust patch for a week, warned that our appetites would decline in the desert. No perishables. No goods with excessive packaging or messy preparation. Nothing that required excessive cooking - we'd have a camp stove, but that really just boiled water. Portable snacks. Max brought us to a delightfully crunchy coop grocery called Rainbow Grocery in Soma that was able to provide us with most of our food.

The Duchess, Patel and I spent nearly all day Monday stripping excess packaging from supplies and packing the car. We picked up a understandably testy Leeds (as he hadn't witnessed the packing extravaganza) who was anxious to get going. One big box stop at Home Depot and Walmart in Sacramento and one crappy pizza stop in Vacaville, CA later, and we were on our way. The Black Rock desert, dubbed Black Rock City during Burning Man, is approximately 6 hours and 15 minutes away from San Francisco and 2 and half hours of that is north of Reno, NV. The last leg of the journey occurs on a two lane highway on which the speed limit fluctuates from 65 mph, to 40 to 35 to 15, back to 35 as the police in tiny Empire and Gerlach, NV squeeze as many speeding tickets as they can out of the wealthy out-of-state visitors.

If we had no idea of what to expect to eat during Burning Man, we had even less of a notion of what to expect to experience. We arrived at the gate at around 2:30 am. After ticket collection and a cursory search of the car, we informed the greeters that it was our first time attending Burning Man. As "virgins" (of course), we were asked to get out of the car. The greeter gave the four of us a quick rundown of desert survival and then we took the final steps into Black Rock City. He asked us to get on our knees on the silty brown ground. Then our hands and knees. Then to lie down. Then to roll around in the dirt - which we all did with wild abandon. One by one, we leapt us and walloped a big bell with a mallet, screaming out, "I'm not a virgin anymore!"

Welcome to the desert.

View of Black Rock City from the deep playa, as taken by ZAS.

My pictures are still in the mail. More on the term "playa" tomorrow.

What a way to start a week. Nevermind that it took us another two hours to find our camp in the dark, as our friends who had arrived earlier were unable to camp where we had planned and we didn't do a very good job of reading their note.

Up next (perhaps tomorrow?): Landscape, Culture and other words you'd find in the name of a college class.

Back But Still Reeling

Hello, New York! I landed at JFK last night at 10:30 local time, meaning that I did not reach my apartment until 12:30, let alone my cherished bed until 1 am. And it felt like 10pm. And I was used to staying up until 4 am Pacific Time. Which is like 7 am Eastern time. So you can imagine how I feel right now.

I had a fantastic time at Burning Man last week for more reasons than it is possible to quantify with my addled brain at the moment. It was wonderful, unlike any other experience I've ever had. I will be providing sketches of my trip tomorrow and possibly Friday, with a few more details after I get my pictures back. I hope at least some of them come out. I decided to go the cheap disposable camera route, as I was reluctant to bring my good camera to an alkali desert for a week.

The best part about the alkali desert sand? You get a chemical burn if it's in contact with your skin for an extended period of time! I'm actually fine, and perhaps in even better health than when I left. A week away from the recirculated air of my office can only do me good.

As per usual, the journey did its best to dismantle my possessions, but I held out. I lost my old digital watch from 6th grade in Jamaica station on the way to JFK last Saturday. I also left my card in San Francisco - my ATM card that is. The Bank of America machines there are a bit older than the ones in New York (at least the ones I've encountered in both cities) and the machine evidently chose to release my card after both my cash and my receipt - and after I had already walked away. I didn't realize it was missing until I was on line to check in at the airport.

Tomorrow: the first official written summary of my trip.