• the day I spent biking in NY. Good to know: there’s a bike path going all round Manhattan. I started off in the lower east village, took that bike path, rounded the coast along Battery Park, biked a little bit on the Hudson Highway (not great), and then crossed over onto the Hudson Trail, which goes all the way up. The first bit is not really scenic, with mostly warehouses and underpasses, but then the bike path becomes lined with grass and trees.
  I could have gone the same way back, but where would have been the fun in that ? So I went into the city, biked in Central park, and crossed my way down from there. I even biked through Time Square (which is on one of the bike paths). It actually felt safer than doing it in Brussels ! The streets are wider, the drivers marginally saner, and in some streets there are separate bike lanes. The main problem comes from pedestrians, who see the bike lanes as a convenient extension of the sidewalk. In Time Square, where there are throngs or people, this becomes a hazard.
• Katz’s Deli: pretty well-known, mentioned in guides, and justly so. It’s a folksy place, with lots of pictures on the wall, as far from hip as you can possibly be. But they have great pastrami. I ordered a pastrami sandwich on rye bread, which came with pickles. The pastrami was warm, salty, juicy and delicious, the pickles were a nice green crunchy counterpoint (and they were salty too, not vinegared).
• In one of my wanders, I passed a place called ‘The Doughnut Plant of New York‘. It didn’t look like much, just a counter, but there was a queue of people looking like addicts waiting for their fix. 10 minutes later, I knew why: doughnuts that literally melt in your mouth. That day I had lavendar and mango. I had no choice but to come back the next day: I had a carrot cake doughnut and a creme brulee doughnut.
• In the ‘good beer pub’ category, the Blind Tiger is pretty decent. They had a Great Divide event going when I was there, so I didn’t feel like I’d wasted my time.
• The MoMa and the Guggenheim. The MoMa is in a fantastic modernist building, and the collections are unique. If you ever wondered how Mondrian got to his square thing, or what stages Picasso went through, or what kind of work led Pollock to his drips, you can see the it displayed there. They had a temporary exhibition on Henry Cartier-Bresson, with fantastic pictures from his whole career. Where the MoMa is more 20th century, the Guggenheim has a foot in the 21st, and displays more conceptual artists as well as the ones we know. Interesting if a bit more demanding.
• The Radio City Music Hall: it doesn’t look like much from the outside, but it’s Art Deco extravaganza by Rockefeller on the inside. There are guided tours, and ours was excellent, extravagantly gay and obviously into the whole broadway scene. The ceilings are actually gold plated (24carat), the light fixtures are amazing, everything is carefully preserved. It’s like a step on the movie set of a 30s pulp movie.

There, if you were wondering what to do next time you’re in the big apple (not likely).

After the three months in Missouri, New York felt like back to civilization – proper cheese and proper bread, art, culture, and the tremendous liveliness of the place. I felt in love instantly, and told myself I would live in Manhattan for a while someday.

This time I’m 34, and on my own. I’m no closer to living in New York than I was then, maybe even farther away. So I was a bit apprehensive coming here – would the city be less attractive through the eyes of the person I had become ?

At first it seemed that way – my hotel in Chinatown right next to the train tracks, the smells of the overheated town …
But then I took a walk, and I felt the attraction again. What mostly makes the charm of NY city is the crowd. Ever moving, ever changing, always something to see. It’s 30 levels of people compressed into one level of street.

And of course, the monumental city forming the scene for all this human comedy. I took a swim through the crowds of Times Square, Central Park, Fifth Avenue …

On tuesday I started from Greenwich Village and walked through Soho. Greenwich Village has a certain amount of contrived charm, with chess tables on small crowded streets. Soho is a shopping district with nice architecture.

Then I walked over Brooklyn Bridge to Brooklyn. Last time I only criss-crossed Manhattan, so I’d promised myself to see Brooklyn (and maybe Queens).

Brooklyn has a very different feel from vibrant Manhattan. It’s clearly a more residential neighborhood. The streets are narrower and greener, the brownstone houses well kept, more children in the streets. The walk along the coast facing Manhattan affords a nice view of the financial district, but Brooklyn Heights itself is worth a wander, too.

Then, since the weather was fantastic, warm with a sea breeze, I piled on the sunscreen and went to see Coney Island. I took a long subway ride to get there, through nondescript apartment block country.

Coney Island is described in terms going from ‘tacky’ to ’seedy’. They’re not wrong. You get off the subway and you’re at the entrance of an old-fashioned theme park, with great wheel and rides and everything.

The theme park transitions smoothly to beach, the beach being lined with many multicolored stands selling drinks and foods.

The beach itself is nice and sandy. While I had a lot of fun photographing the extreme kitch, I did enjoy spending a few hours lying in the sand with a book. One can only absorb so much city. Something can be said for having a beach so close to home.

Back in Manhattan I concluded the evening by going to an Ukrainian restaurant, ending beautifully with a lethal piece of cheesecake.

Now tell me, what’s not to love ?

Update: thanks Mark for the soundtrack

I’ve been slacking off on the blog front, I know.
The truth is that the last few months my life has been pretty much dominated by the fact that I was going to speak at a few conferences, which is still a pretty big deal for me. That and some deadlines have kept my mind otherwise occupied.

But I’m on holiday (yay), so it’s time to pick up the thread !
Last week I came to Baltimore for Railsconf. Baltimore, Maryland is a sizable city about 100km away from Washington. It used to be one of the most important ports of the US, and a large naval base. It has the largest colored population of all US cities.

I was staying downtown, where the conference was also taking place, in a district of mostly uninspired high rises. My first impression was not very favorable – downtown Baltimore seeming fairly lacking in personality.

I visited a fairly crazy museum: American Visionary Art, which displays art by people who 1. have had no training 2. have a screw loose in one of many ways. In a strange way, when they have religious vision, or in a good way, when they’re freedom activists, or in a conventional ways, when they make giant pink poodles or steam liners made out of tooth picks. There was an excellent little collection of automata and I had a great time pushing the buttons to see them in motion.

My first perception of Baltimore changed when locals took us out of that center and to midtown, where you have elegant old brick houses, and an active night life.
The same goes to Fell’s point, which is a picturesque (to the point of theme park-ness) little square with bars and shops. The houses here were small brick houses, with the feel of an old worker’s neighborhood. Those places (and the very decent foods and beers) changed my perception somewhat.

Still, the city gives an impression of fragility. 2 streets away from Fell’s point, you arrive in a wasteland of abandoned warehouses. People told me expressly not to wander off, to make sure I knew where I was going.
Even in the more affluent neighborhoods, many people, predominantly black, idle about, eyes vacant. An impression of apathy. One of my fellow conference goers told me that he saw many crack addicts (since I don’t know the signs, I can only believe him).

So yes, mixed impressions from Baltimore. The weather was hot and muggy for a few days, then a storm cleared up the air and it was fresher for a few days.

After Railsconf I took the train to Washington. Washington, the seat of power – the center (‘The Mall’) all done in neoclassicist style, clearly wanted to style itself the new Rome. As tasteful and understated as those things usually are, propaganda made out of steel and concrete.

Still, you have to admire the fact that they made a number of monumental museums right there between the Capitol and the White House, free for all. Not only is that great by itself, but it’s also an expression of the will to share the plenty with everyone.

The weather stayed very hot my whole stay – constant sweating and diving into coffee shops along the way for a breath of cooled air and frappuccino’s, smoothies of ice coffees to lower the body temperature.

I walked around the Mall the first day – it’s monumental, and it honestly takes an hour to walk it end to end. At night I joined up with the only other Belgians I met at Railsconf for a meal.

The next day I saw some of the Natural History Museum, fossils, dinosaurs and meteors !
I joined with the other Belgians to see the Flight and Space Museum, which is a little child’s dream, full of restored planes and rockets from all stages of human flight. We even did a round on the flight simulator, which was fun, though it made me understand why fighter jet pilots need to be realy fit – 3 minutes being shaken and turned upside down takes some energy out of you, and that’s without the stress of a real mission.

After that I walked off to Dupont Circle, which is another neighborhood, completely different from the stately downtown. Its a leafy residential neighborhood, with a distinct aura of hipness.

Then I joined a friend at a barbeque of one of his friends in GeorgeTown. Georgetown is also very much on the hip end of the spectrum, lots of shops and activity on saturday night, everything in fake old brick houses.

The crowd at the barbecue was quite cosmopolitan – you realize that Washington really is a pole of attraction. There were people working with NASA, World Bank, WHO, NATO, but all very clearly in their off time and having fun. Nice crowd.

Next day I walked all over Washington, visiting Chinatown, seeing the National Portrait Gallery (nice, funny how art can sometimes cheer you up), walked again to Dupont Circle where I had coffee with my friend.

Washington’s metro and I didn’t gel at all. Washington has the subway of the future – grey, clean, uniform. And very low light, it’s a bit as if you’re walking in a boring black and white nightmare. London and New York’s subways are more my cup of tea, hubristic, chaotic, slightly dirty concrete and tile.

After that I continued my sweaty walk up Embassy Row, where most embassies are located. This was yet another category of neighborhood, mansions with leafy gardens emulating many different styles, dog walkers, joggers.

I ended the day by going to Ben’s Chilli Bowl, in a more popular neighborhood – an old-fashioned fast food with a loud and cheerful crowd, and good chili.

I noticed back at home that not only had I a nice collection of blisters, but the top skin of my feet was burned raw red. Oh well.

Today, I’m on my way to New York for a few days. As I’m writing this, I’m sitting in a comfy, air conditioned Amtrak train. I’m looking forward to seeing New York again – it’s been a long while.

I call certain subjects Rant Switches. When these subjects are broached in my presence, I feel a rant bubbling up, and it takes some effort to keep it in. Tirades against the limitations of humanity in general, and about those subjects in paricular.

Belgian community squabbles – flemish against walloons – have long belonged to those subjects. Right now, the BHV crisis is so incredibly absurd that I’m almost speechless. So a small part of the population would need to vote for one subgroup of our poor excuse for a political class instead of another subgroup ? Who Bloody Cares ? Don’t we have anything more important to think about, like the country’s national debt, its administrative sclerosis, unemployment, etc, etc ? Really ?

And don’t get me started on the burqa ban.
Why ban burqas (head to toe islamic veil for women): reasons given:

• a terrorist could be hiding under it and video cameras couldn’t identify them
• to free women from fundamentalist control.

By this reasoning, large sunglasses, wigs, carnival costumes don’t really enhance facial recognition either. Hell, furry conventions or goth meetups are out of the question. While we’re at it, by law we should be obliged to present our faces at the best possible angle when passing a surveillance camera. Anyone see any problem here ?

O wait, it’s in the name of security. Why are you protesting against that ? That’s suspect, no ? Do you, or any of your friend, have any connections to subversive groups ? We need to datamine all your conversations, and take you in for questioning, it’s a matter of state security.

The second reason is even more laughable: free islamic women ? First off, do they want to be freed ? Has anyone asked burqa-wearing women if they wanted to throw off the cloth ? It may be equivalent to asking them to walk around in their bras, for all we know.
And if it’s a matter of oppression – do you really think that forbidding women to cover themselves will help them ? In all probability, if they couldn’t leave the house without their burqa, now, they won’t be able to leave the house at all.

And oh, there’s the small matter of antagonizing parts of a large belgian community. It’s in effect saying ‘you are not welcome here’. Bully behaviour. It’s not by singling out one group and imposing a ban, that anything, at all, will be helped.

Bravo, I say. Pat yourselves on the back. You, who we voted for, have really made our country a better place. We were known for our pedophilic incidents, let’s also be known for ground-breaking stupidity.

breathe in, breathe out … OK, I’ve got it back under control. Carry on.

This has been clear to me for some time, but I was reminded again when reading the ‘Sword of Truth’ saga of Terry Goodkind. I decided to have a look around in my collection, and try and extract who thinks what.

Some are just minding their character’s business, or try to use their imagination without imprinting their own vision in any obvious way, so it’s sometimes subtle. This is a Good Thing – I don’t really appreciate being bludgeoned with misc propaganda while I’m trying to enjoy a story.

• Starting with the freshest: Terry Goodkind. Not difficult: cold war stuff. The bad guys are evil communists, with a dollop of religion on top. He sings the praise of individual enterprise and freedom all through most of the last 5 books (yawn).
• Another sadly obvious one: Lukyanenko (The Night Watch). Russian patriot – the rest of the world is tired, old and decadent. Russia is sharp and young, rejection of foreign concepts and imports, and glorification of russian traditions (like drinking vodka and eating salami or pickled onion, which happens a lot).
• Orson Scott Card: I had to read about it to realize it, but the guy is a convinced mormon. This was mostly clear from the way his characters never have biblical knowledge of eachother before marriage, and then proceed to have as many children as possible. Also pretty right wing, but again, this was harder to parse in his books.
• Philip Pullman. Again, trying to make a point by telling a story. The point was made in bright shining neon letters
• I suspect Terry Pratchet from being rather left wing, he has lots of sympathy for common folks, and kings, dukes and whatnot don’t exactly get preferential treatment.
• Tolkien: Kings and queens, princes, and elves. Based on saga, so he has a solid excuse, although that hasn’t kept some from accusing him of being rather sharply on the right. And hobbits save the day.
• J.K. Rowling: also more on the left side of the spectrum. The rich and powerful are rather unpleasant all through Harry Potter.
• Katherine Kerr: right-wing, I think, like most romantic visions are, really. Nibelungen and all that, you know the drill.
• Robin Hobb: in the same category as Katherine Kerr
• Robert R.R. Martin: more of the same. That doesn’t keep me from really liking his books, if he would only finally go and finish the Song of Ice and FIre.
• China Mieville: left wing, I think, with his fantastic vision of a revolutionary messiah going down in flames.

Neal Stephenson, William Gibson, Robert Charles Darwin, Iain Banks are all more difficult to make out, with people being people in all walks of life. So basically, the best authors are less obvious …

Of course, this is all my perception. I’d be curious to know what you think ? Do you have other obvious examples ? (I probably forgot a few)

As I stood on the quay, slightly tipsy, waiting and thinking about this and that, a man who was sitting on the red plastic seats asked me ‘Do you speak English ?’ He was nondescript, medium-build, medium-height, white ironed shirt and black trousers, and a small suitcase, black eyes in a vaguely rodent-like face.

As I do, I answered that I did. He proceeded.
‘Brussels is a very open-minded city’.
‘Alright ?’ I never thought of Brussels as particularly open-minded, but I consider open-mindedness to be a good thing, so I was rather flattered on behalf of my city.
‘yes, you’ve got these clubs’
Uncomprehending stare.
‘Clubs where people are naked, and you have these orgies, where you have mountains of naked people’ wide-eyed enthusiasm.
‘Oh’ Slightly taken aback, but pushed into the role of the open-minded citizen.

My tram arrived, and I got on. To my annoyance, he followed me, and sat in my vicinity. He continued to talk to me.

‘yes, these clubs that are absolutely amazing’ he continued.
‘and you know, I’m actually a <insert really weird fetish here>. You know what that means ?’
I didn’t. So he proceeded to explain.
In detail. With the same smiling enthusiasm, and I started to suspect that the suitcase he was holding firmly on his lap was there for a reason.
‘but that’s not very hygienic’ I interjected weakly as some point, ever open-minded.

When he finished his explanation, he moved on to ‘you’ve got a very nice, open face. ‘
I was a bit tongue-tied at that one, the situation very clearly outside the parameters of my education.
‘You really have a nice, open face. Could I have your phone number ?’
And he reached and patted my arm.

At that, my brainstem reacted violently and I suddenly found myself teleported 3 meters away from the guy.
‘Look’ i told him, still civil, I think, ‘ you are way out of my comfort zone. I’m not interested at all’.
Fortunately, we arrived at my stop, and I could escape. Which I did, nearly running.
For some reason, I felt like cleaning myself with a steel brush and liberal doses of bleach, especially my arm.

I’ve had the opportunity since to ponder this event.

First off, the guy approached the situation like a perfect little salesman. From the ‘do you speak english’ to the rest of the conversation, it’s text-book sales stuff. What he was selling was absolutely unappealing to me. But I think he probably got part of his satisfaction out of the process.

Secondly, sex is really on the dark side of the mind. We have absolutely no control over what turns us on. In fact, what excites us is absolutely independent of morals, principles or esthetics (proof in the sad case of pedophiles). It’s often linked to the forbidden, and that’s why a lot of people would never even imagine to express their most private fantasies, even to their partners.

One thing we do have control over, is our course of action. The only morally acceptable way is to have partners who agree completely with what we’re up to.

This guy was definitely toeing the line with his approach, by talking in graphical terms about his kink. A bit like phone sex but on an unsuspecting stranger. Not rape, not exhibition either, but still firmly in indecent exposure territory.

A week ago, I was again coming home through Midi station – same time, same place.
I was walking on the tram quay, when I heard to my left
‘Do you speak english ?’
And yes, it was the same guy. A bit less closely shaven, gray stubble accentuating the rodent aspect.
I answered firmly: no, and walked on.

So I have a soft spot for this book. When I heard that Tim Burton was preparing an Alice, I was over the moon. This slightly morbid and crazy world totally fits in with Burton’s universe. The melancholy death of the Oyster Boy, anyone ?

And then I saw the first images. Spectacular. Smooth and yet victorian and dark enough. You could say that that Alice got first place on my list of the most expected movies of 2010. But … then I saw the trailer.

here

What ? It’s a sequel ? By Disney ?
We’ve seen that one before: a studio takes an honourable children’s classic, Peter Pan, and makes a Hook. Peter Pan is not a difficult story, and yet the movie managed to totally ignore the spirit of the original and turn into an american family entertainment movie. Was this really necessary ? Didn’t the original succeed at what it was doing ?

When they take a complex book like Alice, which can be read on about six different levels (i have a volume with lots of annotations to prove it), and write a sequel, I can’t help but fear the worst. It would have been a challenge to make a film sticking to the original (unlike the Disney cartoon), and writing a sequel adds another few level of difficulty. Lewis Caroll fanfic, in essence.

And with Disney, bless their mercantile little souls. I’m expecting good against evil, lots of 3D action, a few ‘awwwww’ moments, and all ends well. I don’t think I stand a high risk betting that they didn’t hire a writer team that can measure up to Charles Dodgson.
So I’m toning down my expectations – seriously. I’ll go and look at the pretty CGI, and hope for the best. Damn !

In effect it made them loners. However, their unique talents also allowed them to create things. An enlightened monarch of the time, who needed help in a war with a neighbour, had a group of them brought together and funded. They discovered how to layer spells to obtain a scrying network, that allowed them to contact each other.

This was a blessing, because they could finally communicate with people who were just like them. They took the insult ’sourcerer’ that had been thrown at them by scornful and envious people, and turned it into a badge of honour. They found comfort in each other’s company and in creating new and complex rituals together.

After a while, though, a strange thing happened. Some sourcerers, being at the right place at the right time, became successful and immensely rich. As a result more and more people wanted to emulate them. The sourcerers of old had created many layers of magic. It was no longer necessary to master them all to access minor spells. Many people could produce tricks, sparks, rabbits and flowers, or had somehow acquired powerful artefacts, and could now, too, perform magic ! So they called themselves ’sourcerer’ too.

The original sourcerers were incensed. These new sourcerers were outrageously normal. They were the very people who had excluded them before for looking frumpy and knowing the powers of two ! How could a prettyboy who could draw swirls and windows in the air, or a vain girl waving a pretty wand pretend to wizardhood !

As a reaction, the sourcerers of old withdrew to older circles of the scrying network. They exchanged secret signs and tokens of recognition, so that they would know they were amongst equals. They started to shun gatherings of new sourcerers, and tended to meet up only in certain prearranged locations. And they started looking for a new name.

This year, I fear this will be worse than ever: We’re changing decade. This means we (or the media) will need new vocabulary. What will we call 2000-2009 ? It’s easy for decades 20 to 90, but for 0 …

It’s fairly moronic to view a decade as a block – almost as moronic as the whole ‘generation’ business – time, and reproduction, is continuous after all. Yet for the sake of simplicity we throw together disco and the vietnam war and call it the seventies. But hey, we love simplification, it allows us to feel wise and in control.

Time to choose a name, then. Remember, this is a label we’ll hear for the next fifty years (after which i probably won’t care), or until mandarin or hindi overtake english. Candidates so far:

• the oughts
• the oughties (variant of the above with obligatory -ies to fit in with what came before)
• the noughties: bad pun alert
• the 2000s: too millenial, fits 2123 just as well and lacks pizazz too.
• the resets ? ‘the start of the century’ ? …

What’s your vote ? Other options ? We can take bets on it and see what comes out on top.