Space Adventures

I know I've been on this Mars rant for a while, but look... for only $102,000 you can go suborbital with Space Adventures. For a week of lodging at the International Space Station and roundtrip transportation, cough up $20,000,000.

Almost 2 out of 3 ain't good enough

Our natural wonders are dying from the heat as NY Times writes about it. I wrote about the problem in the Great Barrier Reef last July. Glad I got that one checked off... snorkeled it, even. During the Alaska AIDS Vaccine Ride in 2000 I trekked the land but missed Glacier National Park.

The one I've gotta get to is Mt. Kilimanjaro. A friend of mine climbed it, and I'd love to, but I don't know when. Any takers?

photo from the Tanzania Tourism Website.

homestarrunner on parsnips

Even Homestarrunner has a toons episode devoted to parsnips. I still love those Strong Bad e-mails the best.

If you love food...

...read Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential. Friends and family have been telling me for years, and I just finished it. The fun part about being a New Yorker raised in the home of a culinary artist is that you GET so much of it.

Jim, Dave, and Eva

©Photo by Matthu Placek

Two of my favorite people, James Klein and David Reid of KleinReid just might be on air with the esteemed Eva Zeisel tentatively scheduled for Sunday, June 26th, on the CBS News Sunday Morning Show Highlighting her career and her current museum retrospective in which some of Jim & Dave's collaborative works with Eva are displayed.

Now Playing

For months before I left my beloved little apartment on Cornelia Street, I watched them renovate and restore the old Waverly Theatre, now reborn as the IFC Center. It faced directly across my apartment building. At the time, I was sans camera and unfortunately only have impressed in my mind an unusal image of the entire theater gutted out. Facing the rear of the theater structure from my front stoop, I was looking straight through the building to the Sixth Avenue facade. Just totalled and empty, the innards of an old brick wall, much like the back of a dollhouse.

In Ev's Shadow

Where Ev goes, I follow... a little later (but hey, before the masses). Not in a creepy stalker way, of course. He just casts a long shadow.

In 2000 I signed up on Blogger where I eventually even paid for a pro account to help support them (and I'd do it again). It was the perfect medium for peeps at home in the U.S. to track where I was in Asia and Australia at the time without having to blast everyone with mass mails. I was grateful for the tool. Blogger hooked me up with flickr a year and a half ago and Hello and other cool stuff.

Then Blogger and Ev moved to Google. Thanks to my active blogger account, I got a coveted invite to Gmail in April 2004 and actually gave my first two invitations away to the HUSTLER OF CULTURE and Matt, who I knew would put their accounts to good use, despite the fact that the invites were selling on eBay for up to $40 at the time.

Now, Ev and Noah Glass have created and yesssss.... I got an invite! Odeo is podcasting made easy. Get in on it now. These guys know what they're doing.

Oh, and we're one degree of separation according to friendster, too.

Reunited after 30 Years

My dad just got to see his brother again, for the first time in over thirty years.

Cool stamps

For a big markup, put your face or artwork on your postage stamps! PhotoStamps offers the service. Perfect for weddings, baby announcements, just moved (picture your own house), art openings and invitations. Granted, you have to live with the ugly black bar code and worse, the grey stamps.com imprint, but it sure makes it more fun to send letters!

Can we get a photographer in the house?

I've known Mica and Ari since they were born, and I like to think I've been a big part of their lives. Yet, somehow, the only pictures that exist of me and the kids are not quite frame-able... Most of these are from this past year, and there's even one from 2002 (the only shot of me with either kid in a collection of 67 pictures).

OMG

Nightmarish.

Nine Symphonies for Download on the BBC

Download all nine of Beethoven's symphonies at the BBC website the day after they are broadcast. All the symphonies are performed by BBC Philharmonic, conducted by Gianandrea Noseda.

My favorites, of course, are the recordings conducted by Von Karajan.

But if you had to choose just one symphony to listen to, please, choose Elgar's Symphony No. 1. Kaly made me go see it performed in New York a few years ago (she attended the Thursday, Friday, and Saturday night performances) and I was stunned. It's better than an hour of TV any day.

If I had a shrink

I think he or she would tell me that I have a problem with authority. But then he or she would agree with why and whom. Because I'm an extraordinarily reasonable person.

Did you take today for Granted?

I try never to take a day for granted. It's harder than you might think. I think I've done it for about six years running. Every day is rich. I always know how the next day is going to be fulfilling. I tell the people I love that I love them. I try to learn something new every day whether it's a word, a recipe, a theory, a place, a language, a shortcut, a system, someone's opinion, whatever. I look at new art and travel to new places and eat new foods. I talk to someone who lives far away from me every single day. Sometimes to four someones. Sometimes six. Every day I write to at least half a dozen people in my life that live far away. Sometimes four hundred and fifty. Sometimes they're real letters. Maybe it's not so hard because everyone in my life lives far away.

Now I don't want to be so far away. I've boldy erased my roots. I can't find them anymore. It's just becoming a bit disconcerting. If you see the same person every day, does that give you roots? If you see 365 people once a year, does that make you rootless? It makes you virtually invisible. I think I'm becoming invisible. Well, ok, maybe just translucent.

PostSecret

We are so lucky. We had the perfect childhood. There are a lot of sad people in this world. PostSecret is insightful and moving, touching, sometimes funny, sometimes scary. And, oh my, how necessary.

Today New York, Tomorrow Santa Monica, Friday Mars.

This debate over where I will move next is keeping me up at night. I think most days, I'm dreaming of my next shoebox apartment, walking down four flights to go to my gourmet cheese shop (or perhaps lugging a load of laundry to the cleaners). Then occasionally I think about the beach, Mica and Ari, future mini HP's, having a bedroom that's not in my kitchen...

And then tonight I thought: what about Washington, D.C.? Not Arlington, where I grew up, but Washington proper. Where I could walk to the metro (and not own a car), maybe work for some agency that's aiding a good human cause. Maybe I'm just a natural born east coaster.

If we could just find a faster way to get to Mars, maybe I wouldn't be so confused. No, because then I'll be weighing Earth or Mars... Mars or Earth. Forget it. Why do I have to choose?