Upright & Stowed

Auspicious Blue Moon Welcomes 2010

It's too cloudy in San Francisco to see tonight's blue moon.  But I'm taking the presence of the first New Year's blue moon since 1990 (and the last til 2028) as a sign that 2010 is going to be a very good year.  One in which we apply the things we've learned in the last decade towards making the next one better, smarter, and more compassionate.  Happy New Year!

The 100 Million Club

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The world's human population is about 6.8 billion, according to the Population Division of the UN.  China (20%) and India (17%) are the giants in this list.  There are only nine other countries with populations over 100 million people.  In case you're interested, here they are:  United States, Indonesia, Brazil, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Russia, Japan and Mexico.  For the full list on country populations, click here. 

Embarrassing Move By EasyJet

Peter Eisenman's Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe (in the heart of Berlin) is one of the most moving pieces of memorial art I've ever seen.  Its stark beauty and massive scale manage to convey the enormity of the loss and the terror of the time in ways that take your breath away. 

Last week it was reported that EasyJet ran a fashion spread in its "Traveller" magazine ... shot among the concrete slabs of the memorial.  All I can say is "Oy Vey."  What were these people thinking?  Pure craziness, from photographer to publisher.  Here's the story, from the Jerusalem Post. 

On Jeanne-Claude and Impermanence

Jeanne-Claude, wife and artistic partner of better-known art-wrapper Christo, died this week at 74.  Jeanne-Claude and Christo were known for their temporary art projects in which they used materials on a monumental scale to change our perception of things, to make us think and (more often than not) to lead us to a smile.   The Gates was their last substantial project, located in Central Park in 2005 (pic is me and my friend Steve at The Gates). 

In describing their work and Jeanne-Claude's view of it, the Times obit wrote:

... all of their projects ... were intended to be temporary. Whether executed in oil drum or brightly colored fabric, the art of Jeanne-Claude and her husband ... expressed “the quality of love and tenderness that we human beings have for what does not last.”

This resonated with me because recently I have been reflecting on the concept of impermanence.  Burning Man, where I've gone for five of the past ten years, is a recognition of and embrace of impermanence.  An entire city appears, and then disappears, in seven days.  The  figurative heart of that city -- The Man -- is burned to ashes as the entire community watches.  A lavish wooden temple is covered with thousands of participant messages of hopes, dreams and fears, and then burned and released into the atmosphere.

This year I also began a meditation practice.  I am beginning to understand the Buddha's thoughts on impermanence.  He recognized that all things are impermanent, and that by embracing this knowledge we can better deal with the constant change (and constant loss) in our lives that so often cause us suffering.

Life is short and fleeting.  If we are not afraid to lose things -- ultimately, we lose everything -- we have a better chance of living in the moment.  Christo and Jeanne-Claude got it.  

To Everything Turn Turn Turn (dateline 10/31/09)

My seasonal preference, in order:  Summer, Fall, Spring Winter. 

My fantasy seasonal recalculation:  Summer (5 months), Fall (3 months), Spring (3 months), Winter (1 month). 

While I wait for global warming to turn my fantasies into reality (or move to South Carolina), I will continue to enjoy living in a place with four fully distinct seasons.  It’s one of the things I missed most during my years in San Francisco.   

I revel in the change of seasons: Different wardrobes … the move from indoors to out and back again … the changing light … the shifting moods.  Nothing captures the exhilaration of seasonal change more than autumn leaves.  This weekend I headed up the Hudson River Valley to Cold Spring, a charming New York town that is a launch point for a breathtaking hike.  I made the trip with my friends Bob, David and Jeff.

 Ahhh, the thrill of fall.   Ooooh, the thrill of it all.

 

 

The Journey of Friendship (dateline 9/23/09)

There are ways in which getting older sucks, and ways in which it doesn’t.   Wisdom and perspective are the great gifts of experience, and they make growing older a little less tough.

One of the things I’ve learned along the way is that friendships change, and it’s futile to try to keep them as they were at any special moment.  I have been abandoned by some friends, and I have chosen to leave others.  But mostly, I have worked hard to keep my friends in my life in some capacity. 

Here are two pictures of me and my friend Danny.  We first met in 1982.   We were friends for years before becoming boyfriends in 2001.  The first shot is taken that year, on a particularly perfect New Year’s Eve.   This was also the year that we took a solemn hike on Marin County’s Tennessee Valley Trail, stunned after a day watching the events of September 11^th unfold.    The second picture was taken when I was in San Francisco a couple weeks ago, and nine years later.    We were on that same trail, where we marked the anniversary and had a wonderful day.  In the intervening nine years our friendship, like so many others, has changed.  In good ways and hard ways.  But here we are, still making it work.  :-)

Whatever path you’re on in life, it’s a lot richer when filled with friendships, old and new. 

The Last of a Generation (dateline 9/17/09)

While I was at Burning Man a significant milestone occurred in my life.  My Great Aunt Doretta (in this photo, with me last year) passed away, at 86.  She was the last of my great aunts/uncles, and her death marks the passing of the final member of my grandparents’ generation.   Kind of weird to think about an entire generation of your immediate family being gone.   For me this generation loomed large … they were omnipresent in my childhood, served up guidance and wisdom throughout my life, and were my window to America in the mid 20^th Century.   Happily, most of them lived long and rich lives, mostly in the Midwest. 

I’m not a big believer in afterlife, but I like the idea that all four sets of my grandparents’ and all their siblings are now reunited… somewhere.  The thought is especially sweet in the case of my Grandpa Max, who lost brothers and sisters (and many others) in the Holocaust.  If your grandparents, great aunts or great uncles are still living, why not reach out and let them know how much they mean to you.  I bet it’ll make your day, and theirs.

If We Knew Summer Was Gonna Be Like This...

I scanned this image from the paper the other day.  It shows NYC temperature and precipitation deviations from average for the past 10, 30, 90 and 365 days.  I post this as NYC has its first true hot spell of 2009.

Looking at the chart above, I'd like to draw your attention to the "90 Days" vs. average line.  The one where the temperature is on the far left (way below) of average and the precipitation is on the far right (way above) of average.  Yep.  That pretty much sums up the summer 09 in the Big Apple. 

Knowing what I know now, I might have chosen to spend the summer in, say, fog capitals like wintery San Francisco or chilly Seattle, since both have enjoyed unusually delightful summers this year.  But I stuck it out in NYC, as I always do, and I've enjoyed the real riches of summer in the city:  a never ending performance of street theater, more cultural events than you can shake a stick at, and my garden, which has never looked better.  A great summer so far ... though I'm rooting for hot and sticky dog days before it all ends.

Reeling in the Years

If you’d told me in 1978 that I would be attending a Steely Dan concert in 2009, I’d have looked at you funny.  Who can imagine being 48 years old when they’re 17?  Who wants to think about a favorite band – at its peak – playing well past its prime?  And who, at that time, would allow that Steely Dan would ever perform live again, given their move towards becoming the ultimate in-studio recording artists?

But there I was last night – in 2009 – with my college friend Rob (acclaimed music critic and Brown freshman year dorm mate from 1979) listening to Steely Dan play the entire Aja album (in order), plus 15 or so other classics.  This most fastidious of studio bands delivered a terrific live set, with all the complex jazz, rock, R&B and other influences sounding as smooth as I remembered.  Donald Fagan’s vocals were painfully strained, but his enthusiasm and commitment made up for it.

Memories of another time in music flowed:  Listening to an album as an entire composition … reading lyrics on the record sleeve … sitting in my bedroom with my Sennheiser headphones on… anticipating a band’s new release.  

What do ya know?  Thirty years later and there I sat, reeling in the years.  It felt good.

The Power of More Than One

"Try to remember that you are part of a huge community that produces its most creative and important works through collaboration.  You don't have to do it alone ... and will achieve more by letting others in, listening, giving, staying open."

I wrote these word to myself in 2005 from the Black Rock Desert at the end of Burning Man.  A friend passed out postcards to everyone, had us write messages to ourselves, collected them, and mailed them to our homes about 6 months later.  The idea was to reconnect us to whatever we were feeling at the end of this amazing event.  The picture above is a Burning Man art installation called "Crude Awakening," featuring a set of huge metal sculptures (one praying figure for each continent) in thrall of the mother lode of oil.  The derrick was blown up and set afire on the last night.  See the mind-blowing video here.

The creative collaboration that made this artwork possible is the same idea that Netflix is tapping into in its much praised @4 million contest to improve movie satisfaction predictability by 10%.  Here's a great article on the power teamwork, inspired by the Netflix project.

This week I made my official decision to return to Burning Man at the end of August.  I am beyond excited.  What I most look forward to is – once again – being inspired by the awesome creative power of man, especially when we come together to create as a team.