Good Night, and Good Luck.

Kindhearted readers, I bear sad news.  Earlier this week the highest of the higher-ups at my place of employment released a memorandum officially decreeing it against company policy for employees to maintain blogs such as this one (to be clear: blogs of the semi-anonymous, semi-personal, link-heavy, sometimes opinionated, current-events-driven, politically mouthy, and generally frivolous variety).  In the days and hours since its distribution to all employees, the new policy has been republished on several industry sites and has been the subject of much internal and external discussion. Prior to this, blogging guidelines at my office had been vague at best; it seemed safe to assume that my particular brand of bonhomie was a low-risk recreational endeavor.  Several months ago, however, the controversial(-ish) personal blog posts of one worker bee on my floor brought the issue to the fore. The perp was promptly fired, and ta-da: A new no-blog bottom line emerged.  What I'm getting at is that in the interest of bread and butter, I've decided it's best to not attempt to have my cake and eat it too, or something like that, so to speak. Until circumstances change, I'm putting this menagerie of friendly curios to sleep.  But in the meantime, fear not -- I'll be channeling the energies that once made their way onto this page into raucous emails to the likes of you, old-school pen-and paper diary entries, and a couple of creative projects I've been meaning to get around to for some time.  (And, I suppose, my "day job.")  At any rate, be well, do good work and keep in touch.

Eat More Beet

Last week beets made the Well's list of The 11 Best Foods You Aren't Eating. Since I've recently been all about culinary experiments -- and I like beets -- I took it as a challenge and grabbed a bunch of them at the grocery store this week. But what to do with them? For starters, I rooted through the fridge and assembled a salad (spinach, beets, oranges, tomatos, feta, walnuts), and since the only dressing in the fridge had coagulated beyond rescue, I added some mustard to a bastardized microwave version of this recipe to make a honey mustard vinegarette. So far so good, but there are still 2 more beets in the fridge. Beet palaya is a simple classic, and the kind of dish that's hard to mess up. But if I had the time -- and one of these swish Benriner spiral vegetable slicers -- I would totally attempt this tasty-looking Beet and Feta Tart.

Snail Mail

I spotted this map stationary on Polly's lovely blog, Poor Couture (which, I should warn you, is full of all sorts of fun and eye-catching goodies). This envelope and letter paper set caught my eye because I totally had one just like it as a kid! In this era of GPS and email, it now strikes me as very quaint.

Page Turners

Last night I saw a very large, sturdy (and presumably IKEA) wooden bookshelf on the curb on my street and had to be talked out of bringing it home to join the ranks of the apartment's sundry adopted furnishings (the strays we currently shelter include 3 chairs, a toaster and a shower curtain).  If I had another bookshelf I would stock it with Asterix & Obelix, Tintin and of course, Amar Chitra Katha comics.  It would be great.  

Microfameballers Unmasked

As more than a few of you know, I have had my share of awkward run-ins with various New York fameballs, including one who lives in my building (our conversation at the grocery story earlier this week was typical: "Hey, what's up?" "Oh, you know, pretty good"). So I was amused to see the phenomenon of microfame get parsed in New York magazine this week: "Though an element of luck often plays a role in achieving traditional fame, microfame is practically a science. It is attainable like running a marathon or acing the LSAT. All you need is a road map." I guess not everyone can content themselves with being just an Average Homeboy?

Bangalore Train Junction

Did I mention that I was recently in India? When people ask about my trip, I'm never sure what level of detail they're interested in -- or how to quickly convey a real sense of the experience without being a bore. Lo and behold, this week BoingBoing comes to my (partial) rescue with this excellent video of a Bangalore train junction. Click to spend 3 minutes and 58 seconds on an intersection in the capital of Karnataka. 

Zoom Zoom

Landed! A little jet-lagged but thrilled to be here. 

Over the River and Through the Woods

The modern world is changing fast.  But some things don't change: A passage to India still takes a really long time. I'm out of commission through Monday.  I hope to keep the posts coming from the subcontinent, but no guarantees ... stay tuned, true believers!

Fog Lifted Early

Loyal readers, apologies for the drought of posts of late.  Busy times for the blog proprietress.  This weekend was spent cleaning, dismantling and discarding old stuff; purchasing, assembling, and organizing new stuff; riding utility elevators, climbing stairs, bargaining, finagling, cursing, celebrating and so forth. Hard work for soft hands accustomed only to the gentle demands of the mouse and keyboard! At any rate, while sorting through my stuff yesterday, I stumbled upon this poem. It's from Nobel Laureate Czeslaw Milosz's Collected Poems 1931-1987 and it's called "Gift":

A day so happy.

Fog lifted early, I worked in the garden.

Hummingbirds were stopping over honeysuckle flowers.

There was no

thing on earth I wanted to possess.

I knew no-one worth my envying him. 

Whatever evil I suffered, I forgot,

To think that once I was the same man did not embarrass me.

In my body I felt no pain.

When straightening up, I saw the blue sea and sails. 

1st in Class

Have you ever wondered what the results of a Google image search for "bonhomie" would bring? You're looking at them. 

Woof

I just realized that this blog has been alive for a full three months.

For Love and Money

Alright! Wait no more! This month's issue of the Boston Review is online! Hooray!

I'm Just Sayin'

If you try to go buy this month's Boston Review at one of these upstanding establishments, you will learn that it won't be in stock til March 29 ... save your pocket money and stay tuned, friends! 

Mmm.

You're looking at what I had for dinner yesterday. It was delicious.

On Cold Showers

I like my gym -- convenient hours and locations, well-maintained facilities, boppin' tunes, weight-loss advice that in fact works (if you follow it), etc. etc. (did I mention the hairdryers? the hairdryers are great). But if I have one complaint, it's that sometimes the showers turn icy cold without warning. Why does this happen? And, more importantly, why does this happen to me? Well, as BoingBoing kindly explains, when the gym is crowded, no one is spared. Here's why cold water indifferently rains down on the svelte and not-so-svelte alike:

Christina Matzke at the University of Bonn in Germany and Damien Challet of the Institute for Scientific Interchange in Turin, Italy, used a mathematical model to show that shower temperature becomes increasingly sensitive to small changes in hot-water flow as the number of users increases. Thus in a youth hostel, for example, the showers often fluctuate between scalding hot and ice cold during heavy use. 

Annoying (even if that burst of cold water protects one's sanity).

About Those Brown Spots

me: this morning when I was leaving the apartment
I spilled/flung a cup of coffee all over my desk and computer
I just got home and I was pulling my hair back and I looked at the ceiling
and there's coffee on the ceiling
it's amazing
Lan: hahaha
me: I think it merits a blog post
Lan: haha
it does

Light Switch

Incandescent lights are super! Yes, they are!

JELLOquence?

I thought I had heard it all when it came to sound-bites from NYU spokesman John Beckman. But today he outdid himself with this quote (via Gothamist) about the dismissal of a lawsuit filed by a student who broke his hip at an NYU Jell-O wrestling event. "This case broke the mold," Beckman told The Daily News, "But all in all, we believe justice was served sweetly."

Do the Locomotion

What makes the perfect workout playlist? This article describes the research of a Dr. Costas Karageorghis, who has spent two decades on the subject. I like the idea of tracking the songs' BPM (beats-per-minute) -- Platinum Blue and Pandora are good examples of that kind of data's possibilities -- but I was disappointed that Dr. Karageorghis relies on survey results (participants "listen to 90 seconds of a song and rate its motivational qualities for various physical activities") rather than actually testing how the duration or intensity of a workout varies with the BPM of the playlist.

Personally, I'm a die-hard fan of the New York Sports Club's bopping in-house music video channel, aka ClubCom's Sports Clubs Network. A typical half-hour set (I paid close attention last night): Hilary Duff, Stevie Wonder, Kylie Minogue, Kenny Loggins, Gwen Stefani, Queen, Janet Jackson, 50 Cent, Maroon 5, Peter Gabriel. Not bad, right? Whatever keeps my resolve from crumbling.

Thanks for Reading

This blogging thing being a brand-spanking-new little caper for me, I'm aware that I could suddenly run out of things to post or suddenly have a heart attack.  I'm also aware of perspicacious Jane Smiley's observation on writing novels, which I think certainly holds true (and then some) when it comes to keeping a blog: "If to live is to progress, if you are lucky, from foolishness to wisdom, then to write ... is to broadcast the various stages of your foolishness."  Which is all to say, thanks for humoring me, and thanks for the feedback! And enjoy.