ducks and a lobster

New York is absolutely beautiful in the rain.


And here's one just as beautiful, but in kind of the opposite way.


Had lunch at a pretty good sandwich place... probably one of the best meals I've had so far in New York. I didn't notice until looking at my picture that there was a little surveillance camera hiding in the corner.


We tromped across Central Park in the rain to catch the tram over to Roosevelt Island. Pretty quiet place, but a cool view of Manhattan.


Other stops of the day included a funny little thrift store and FAO Schwarz. Quite opposite places, but each had its own charm.

I still haven't really picked a direction for my big project of the term, but I'm sure I'll get it figured out pretty soon. Until then, I will explore and take pictures, which has been great so far.

1. Google Earth officially rocks my world. It is soon going to be invaded by cubes, so watch out! Haha this will be very confusing for anybody who wasn't at our meeting this morning, but purposefully so.

2. MonkeyTown was pretty sweet. We met with the folks from the Institute for the Future of the Book there, and it was just a cool atmosphere and an interesting presentation from them. Here's a couple pictures of the dining part of it, which apparently has really good food that I just might have to try later this weekend when I'm out in Broooklyn again.




I'm kind of skeptical about the digital book, or BOOK (that's upside down, although you can't really tell) idea. There's just a lot of value in having the actual printed material in hand, and especially with old books, the book itself - the binding and structure, are art. My summer job has made me such a library nerd. Yes, it would be convenient to take a whole library of books in one electronic piece of equipment, but I don't think the printed book will ever become obsolete. People can try to compare it to the switch from cassettes to CD's to mp3's, but the difference is that all of those formats are already mediated like the digital book would be. Printed books are like live music that you can relive over and over again.

3. Where are the bananas, you might ask? Well, MonkeyTown. Except they didn't actually have any. And I want to go shopping for fruit at a grocery store that isn't twice as expensive as it should be, if those even exist here.

4. Just because I like it (and yes, I'm aware it's blurry, but that's part of why I like it), here's a picture I snapped yesterday on the way down to the subway.


5. I am officially done for the night. I need a few hours off. Yay!

Today was much slower paced... a nice reprieve in prep for a big weekend. Found out we'll have the chance to work with more experienced New Media artists, which should be pretty sweet. I think it will be nice to be able to be a part of bigger projects that I would never be able to make myself because I have no idea how to do any of the programming stuff. I'm really just feeling quite clueless in general at this point... hopefully by just going out and doing stuff, meeting with artists at Conflux, etc, I'll be able to get some project ideas started.

As far as what I did today, pretty uneventful. I was feeling exhausted by midday, so I took a nap in the afternoon. Then I headed downtown to meet up with some friends for dinner. It was my first time out navigating the city on my own, and not quite as scary as I thought it would be. The subway station at Times Square is absolutely insane... people going in so many directions, and they are all just so focused on their destination. I almost walked into so many people... there must be a trick to being able to walk in a straight line and having people go around you instead of the opposite, which is what I found happening to me.

I think that at this point, even cooler than the city itself and the buildings and the history, is just the people. You hear the most amazing little tidbits of people's lives when you're walking past, and there are hundreds of thousands of these people out and about in the city. Most of them you just walk by without giving it a thought, but then there's others that are more memorable. Like the lady on the subway who smiled at me. Or the man on the street corner who started raving about Michael Jackson and then a minute later announced, "I've been a bum for 19 years now... 1 more and I can retire!"

I think that's all for now, folks. I'm out.

Arrived in New York this morning, and my afternoon and evening were spent wandering around the city. I went a little bit crazy snapping pictures, and here's some of the highlights:

Ground Zero was pretty busy, probably because of the fact that it's the 5 year anniversary today (am I allowed to use that word here? anniversaries are usually good things...). This picture doesn't have much to do with it, besides the flag and the fact that it's right next to the WTC site, but I really like how the neighboring building is reflected in the glass and distorted by the curvature of the panes.


The boys trying to get the same shot. Thought it was cute.


The New York Stock Exchange. Yes, the rightmost small flag is the Campbells logo.


In a sea of huge square buildings, this one stood out each time I came across it from different directions. This one was the most surprising.


We stumbled across a little park with some crazy sculptures in it. I call this "tree through tube".

So, now that my day has been logged for all to see, I think I will head off to get some much needed sleep. Whoever invented red eye flights ought to be slapped.

So, I leave tonight to head off to New York, and I figured this would be an appropriate time for a first post here. I really don't know what to expect from this program and my travels afterward, but I do know that it will be awesome. So, stick around and read all about the awesomeness of the next few months. Hopefully I'll end up with some cool stuff here.