Ukulele Fever

I've got ukulele fever and I've got it bad.  This isn't just some sort of tepid condition alleviated with a few aspirin and a couple days rest.  It's an all encompassing obsession that pumps through my veins and leaves me restless.   Most of my passions end up driving me through the day and this hankering desire for a ukulele is no different.  I've always felt a connection with the instrument's mobile and triumphantly nerdy beauty but right now I feel like the connections in my brain are made of ukulele strings.  In my obsessive condition I've been scouring YouTube and I recently stumbled upon this 11 year old elementary school student named Anko.  His hobbies include making "new rube goldberg machines" and his favorite books are "novels."  This guy is adorable, not to mention talented.  Check out his YouTube channel here (he also makes Lego- animation videos) or just listen to a couple of his songs below.

Keita - "Stand By Me"

Keita - "Love Me Do"

Current Goal: Monetize My Restaurant Passion

If you've ever eaten with me (or probably if you've ever spoken to me), you know.  I love food.  Mexican food, desserts, Ethiopian Food, cream cheese.  Indian food, garlic bread, Thai food, and tofu.  It's all beautiful to me, and meals in my company are more like celebrations that last hours.  I enjoy every bite, bask in every moment, and appreciate (almost) every morsel.

Being in New York City, I'm constantly tempted by the compendious food choices that surround me.  When I do decide to go out I find myself spinning in circles in an attempt to decide which place to enter.  There are thousands of restaurants in the city (I tried to devise methods for accurately estimating but fear I have yet to think of an efficient way of doing so) and I want to go to taste what every single one has to offer.  

I'm not sure if it's the overachiever in me, the romantic idea of accomplishment that comes with eating something from every restaurant, or the value I place on the social currency of truly being able to offer solid recommendations to people based on their interests, but I might be a lot obsessed with the thought of eating in every New York City restaurant.  I achieved this in Northampton, Massachusetts right before I moved away, but the issue of closures and change in the city would make such a feat nearly impossible in New York City.  

Still, I would very much like to explore the idea of trying.  Because of money restrictions such an idea is out of the question, but of course I'm not willing to give up so quickly, and here is where I need your brilliant minds.  If I were to pursue this goal I would need a lot of money.  Some sort of funding would need to be made available, either via a V.C, sponsorship(s), or a means of monetizing my restaurant attendance (perhaps Super Size Me or Fast Food Nation style?) would certainly be in order.

If I could get that, or if I were to propose such a thing, what would be required on my part?  For the unadulterated pleasure of thought exercises, I wish to explore the proposition below:

According to a Google Answers response the Census Bureau recorded 14,590 restaurants and bars in New York City at the end of 2002.  For the sake of estimation and such, let's just assume there are 15,000 restaurants in the city.  I'm not a math major here so correct me if I'm wrong, but if I went to one restaurant per day, it would take me 15,000 days or 41.1 years to conquer the city's food venues (not taking into account leap years).  At an average of $25 per meal (I pulled that number from thin air) I would need $375,000 to eat out once per day for the next 41.1 years.

The first thought that pops into my head when I think about 41 years is the way native New Yorkers talk about how New York used to feel in the 1970's.  It seems like a completely different world, and with different worlds undoubtedly comes different restaurants.  Few of the mainstays from when I began my project would still exist 41 years from now, meaning I should, in theory, give up on the idea.  

But then I think about how wonderful it would be to try every restaurant.  It wouldn't be a matter of which restaurant I wanted to experience, but for what occasion and when I wanted to experience it.  I can imagine drawing graphs and posting oversized maps illustrating my quest through the city's cuisine.  

When I was little (like two or three) I wanted to be a pirate.  Something about that desire still fascinates me, but this restaurant proposition even beats the dreamy elements of choosing "pirate" as a career path.

I may not ever get to every restaurant in New York City, but what if I could eat in every location?  What is Grotto on 100 Forsyth Street today might be a completely different restaurant in 2050, but I would still be able to say that I, at the tender age of 22, once sat in that restaurant back before they started serving whatever will be the unimaginably futuristic and trendy cuisine of 41 years from now.

The visions of the past are mostly irrelevant to most, but in my eyes that doesn't devalue the idea of chasing my goal. The restaurants I attend may not always exist but I know I'll always remember the way it felt to bask in the nautical environment of Grotto, for example, as I shared entrees of tortellini and pork with someone I hope will still be in my life in one way or another 41.1 years from now.

Unwavering I stand.  I'm not saying there won't be nights when I want to stay in, but I foresee unmatched good times.  I could become the Beatle Bob of New York City's restaurants, the foodie version of Dale Webster (the man who has surfed every day for more than 32 years), or the aficionado of food history in New York.  Whatever the case, it sounds like a beautiful mission.  

Anybody care to share how I could monetize this or find some sort of funding?  I'll show you lots of appreciation, and if you're lucky, take you out to dinner.

***

Today's music recommendations honor two wonderful artists who, in my opinion, have provided beautiful work on New York.

LCD Soundsystem - "New York I Love You" (The scenes are from a Carson film about NYC in the 1950's)

Kelly McRae - "BQE" (I couldn't find the actual song in video form, but check it out.  It has some of the most beautiful lyrics I've ever heard when it comes to appreciating the city.)

The Big Bang

During the past few weeks I have found myself utterly incapable of falling asleep unless I am absolutely exhausted. Most people say it's worry that keeps them up, but the nature of my insomnia is the direct opposite. It's as if suddenly I realized that the world is too full of beauty for me to close my eyes much longer than the duration of a blink, and I am left trying to take it all in. I want to find art in the city, learn everything about the economic situation, absorb every fact or deception in the current race to the presidency, and read as much wisdom as journalists and writers will impart on their audiences. Then I want to master pop culture and take time to slow down to notice the clouds or the architecture.

Periods of intense learning, for me, come in dramatic phases. I love being informed and you'll always find me glued to some sort of publication, but every now and then I get especially ambitious in my attempts. I am an eternal learner, but I call phases like what I am in now my learning resurgence. Only resurgence implies that something has come back again, and the degree at which I am attempting to take everything in is absolutely unprecedented. I've never seen anyone like this.

Even I know that my current sprint for knowledge and awareness is more than ridiculous. But what do you do besides keep pace with them as scholars and critics reference one another in trails of relevant information? Giroux leads to Poplin, leads to Stein, leads to Anderson, and the next thing I know I am face down on top of my sheets, the imprint of a book digging into my right cheek. I'll sleep in that deep immovable state for hours, but it's only because I've gone so long without a proper night's sleep that my body can't help but finally surrender to its biological imperatives.

And right now, at this very moment, nothing is more imperative than learning. Oh what I would do to be able to absorb it and truly understand with one big blast. They could call it The Big Bang, only this time no one would have to study it because they would know. But hey, maybe, just maybe, that's the point anyway. If we ever knew it all, from the future of marketing to the point of our existence, then existing at all wouldn't be so wonderful anyway.

I'll turn to ashes before I find the end of this trail, but until then I'll burn in my pursuit of knowledge, snapping and crackling with intellectual secrets of the world. With deep breaths that stick in my lungs and stay trapped in my being, I will learn as much as humanly possible. That is my learning resurgence. That is The Big Bang.

***

Random Note: For those of you curious about the picture, this is one of the service change signs posted at the subway station I frequent.  I thought it said a lot about where I live (and only strengthened my desire to learn Chinese for more than intellectual purposes), so I took a picture to share.

***

And even though I have a hankering desire to escape into the grasp of Bellah, Madsen, and Tipton, I'll share a recent music discovery that I think will remain a favorite for years to come.  Check out The Ballet.  Electro infused rock with a violin never felt so infectious and sparkling.  All Music Guide calls them "yearning, wistful, melancholy, literate, reflective, bittersweet, earnest, delicate, intimate, precious, and poignant.  I couldn't have said it better.  So even if you've ignored this section before, click here and enjoy.  

In Memorandum - The Bracelet Tradition

If you've seen me since January you have probably noticed the spiral hemp bracelet hanging from my wrist. It was a good luck charm, one that I traditionally acquired prior to every season of softball, and now my wrist is naked.

The bracelet tradition started in high school, back before Livestrong and Nike Baller bracelets were all the fad. I had multiple bracelets of that type and rotated them frequently, always feeling like they were an accoutrement of luck. The question of luck was confirmed one day when I slid my hand into home plate. The opposing team's catcher landed on my wrist but her metal cleat cut through my layers of bracelets leaving me with only a minor abrasion.

From there on out I needed a bracelet. It couldn't just be any bracelet, but one that I connected with spiritually, something that made me feel like I could center myself. My freshman year it was hemp, and my sophomore year it was part of a material label that was wrapped around a Brooks Brother's shirt. Junior year I connected with a maroon and white watch band, and senior year I returned to the knotted spiral hemp.

Initially I thought that my bracelets gave me luck and the power to succeed in softball. Eventually I learned that the bracelet was more about life. Each bracelet, just like every year of my life, seems to have taught me a lesson.

Freshman year I learned that sometimes ignorance is bliss, because a new, confident and fresh approach can be unstoppable. Sophomore year about the rewards of quietly succeeding under the radar. Junior year I learned about balance, and senior year was another lesson entirely.

At first the spiraled hemp of my final year of softball was tight. Through its journey the lifted seams faded, the bracelet loosened, and I acquired red and chrome accent colors on one chunk where a friend with Alzheimer's thought we could "spiff things up a bit and make it jazzy." Over time even the red and chrome faded.

My most recent bracelet seemed to have taught me to endure struggle, although in so many ways I am too lucky to claim anything but a charmed life. I slumped my softball season in that bracelet, tried to make everyone happy in that bracelet, realized I didn't have everything figured out about my future in that bracelet, and finally learned that no matter what I would get through.

Now that I am for the most part settled in New York though, I decided to shed myself of the bracelet. It just felt like the right moment, the perfect time and place. Stripping the bracelet off my wrist doesn't mean that I am throwing out what happened while it was there though. I'm not trashing everything and starting with a new beginning. Instead I have learned something entirely different.

I learned that struggle is inevitable, and that sometimes all it takes is endurance and the power to grin and bear it. With enough work and the inevitable luck that ensues, everything will sort itself out in its own time. It might take patience but it's well worth the persistence.

With this past season and this past bracelet I was humbled and grounded. It was a lesson I needed to learn, and now I feel like I can take on any situation with a strong and even headed approach.

As I begin graduate school at NYU, assistant coach for Columbia Softball, transform myself into a personal trainer, tutor, and write, I will succeed. There will be waves that crash and try to knock me around but I will get back up and swim into the current.

I will always keep every good luck bracelet stored and safe but more important, I will preserve the lessons I learned in my bracelets as long as I live. Hopefully they will make me a better person. My wrist may be bare at the moment but I am covered with the lessons I have learned. And maybe, just maybe, I will find a new excuse to wrap a bracelet around my wrist.

Most people will dismiss it as yet another sporty superstition, but you, my dear reader, will know otherwise.

***

Catharsis and Humdrum makes me feel like I just popped in a great rock disc from the late 90s. This band is The Get Up Kids all over again, with a slightly futuristic element. Check out the cover of "Every Breath You Take."

The Accumulation of Notebooks

Office supplies, they do it to me every time. Give me a whiff of plastic sheet protectors and I'm delighted, show me the ink flow on a new pen and I'll covet it until the ink runs out, or bring me a notebook and I'll feel compelled to buy it. Regardless of how hard I try to resist, office supplies are the weakness in me (as well as technology and a number of other things but that will come up later).

My affinity for office supplies has resulted in two things. The first is rationed trips to office supply stores. The other is the horrible accumulation of notebooks. "Oh, this one is the perfect size," I'll say about one as soon as I see it. Or "Wow, look at the way the pages fold as a result of the smooth three ring spiral redesign," I'll say about another. Then the justification comes in. I think of every reason why I absolutely need this notebook, and usually if it's only a couple bucks I splurge.

When I first acquire a notebook it becomes my best friend. I carry it along with me everywhere (in addition to a couple magazines) and write various notes, story ideas, or compelling metaphors inside. After awhile I gradually withdraw from the notebook. Maybe I feel like my writing kick is too off topic to go in the notebook I've been carrying around so I switch, other times I just get tired of lugging the same thing around all the time and I let my notebook stay in one place. As a result, I have a collection of half filled (optimism intended) notebooks.

Sometimes I look back at notebooks, and when I needed something for my overnight interview with The Donut Man I sifted through the pages of a few to find something suitable for interview notes (as well as splatters of donut fixings). One notebook was a small black covered book, and in it I found a quote from Theodore Roosevelt that I love. It reads:

"It's not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again...who spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly."

With jewels like that, small reminders of what impacts me greatly at any given time in my life, I suppose my obsession with notebooks isn't all that bad. Maybe I'll head to the office supply store. After all I do need more printer ink. And what better reason to purchase another notebook than quotes like Roosevelt's?


Current music infatuation: Girlyman