2008: Year of Culture in Review

Each year, I like to track what I've seen, read and experienced. 

It's a great way to share ideas with others, not to mention capture the year that was.  Especially if you don't have a great memory like me. (It's more of a list than commentary, but a few things have ** were just terrific. Things with a ^ were awful.) I also put in some links to some I have on my Amazon store if you wanna buy them directly.

BOOKS

Fiction:
Family and Other Accidents, Shari Goldhagen

Mergers & Acquisitions, Dana Vachon, silly novel
Unaccustomed Earth, Jhumpa Lahihi's new book of stories**
I Just Want My Pants Back, David Rosen
Music Through the Floor, short stories, Eric Puchner**
A Thousand Years of Good Prayers: Stories, Yiyun Li**
The Secret Servant, Daniel DiSilva** (now I'm into this genre)

Big Slick, Eric Luper*
The City of Your Final Destination, Peter Cameron
The Indian Clerk, David Leavitt^

Exiles in America, Christopher Bram

NonFiction:
Fair Game, Valerie Plame Wilson

Hot, Flat & Crowded, Thomas Friedman**
Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945, Tony Judt**
When You Are Engulfed In Flames, David Sedaris**
Have You No Shame? essays, Rachel Shukert**
I Was Told There'd Be Cake, essays, Sloane Crosley*

Things In My Life I Have Learned So Far, Stephen Sagemeister
If You Want to Write, Brenda Ueland
No Plot? No Problem, Chris Baty
What's That Job and How the Hell Do I Get It?, David Rosen
Pay It Down, Jean Chatzy* (for one of these type of bks, it's pretty darn good)
Camp Camp: Where Fantasy Meets Lord of the Flies
Perfect Pitch: The Art of Selling Ideas and Winning New Business
Radical Careering: 100 Truths to Jumpstart Your Job, Your Career, and Your Life, Sally Hogshead**

FILM
Sweeney Todd (better on bway)

Iron Man

The Savages (weird to watch on a plane)

Persepolis*

Sicko
No Country for Old Men**
The Other Boleyn Girl
Sex and the City
John Adams miniseries on HBO**
Helvetica
La Vie En Rose**
Mama Mia!^
Religulous* (Bill Mahr's piece de resistence)
W (James Brolin vehicle)
Quantam of Solace (not as good as Casino Royale)
Milk (Yes, Sean is great; narrative a bit halting)
Slumlord Millionaire** (utterly stunning)

Gosford Park (again, Maggie's great)

Casablanca (again)

It's a Wonderful Life (again, oddly timely)

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button*

Lust, Caution (Ang Lee)

ART & ARCHITECTURE
What I Would Rather Be Doing Exhibit, One Club (January)

Murakambi, Brooklyn Museum

DaDa at the MoMA

Brooklyn Designs exhibit, DUMBO (April)

Interesting New York (Bryan spoke)*

Musee Quai de Branly, Paris

Musee Orangerie, Paris (Monet Waterlilies)**

Foundation Cartier, Paris (Migrants exhibition)

American Cemetary, Normandy** *(Nov)

Gilbert & George Exhibit, Brooklyn Museum (November)

THEATRE/MUSIC
August: Osage County** *(probably the best theatre I've seen in a decade)

South Pacific**

James Blunt, The Beacon (February)**

Rufus Wainright, Radio City Music Hall (February)

James Taylor, Tanglewood (July)

Paul Simon with appearance by David Byrne, BAM

Charlie & Chocolate Factory (Sam's musical)**

NYC Gay Men's Chorus Christmas Concert at Carnegie Hall (bit of a downer this year)

David Sedaris, Avery Fisher Hall**

New Angle of Paris

Returned from our Paris annual trip. 

Usually, we go towards the end of the week for our traditional Thanksgiving, with our friends Alain and Ann and 15-20 of their friends. 

Bryan has a lot of great pictures from this past week, which I'll link to where appropriate. He's become quite a good photographer.

This year, we rented an apt in the 3rd right near them and had a full week in Paris instead. We started with a weekend in Normandy to see the D-Day beaches, American Cemetery and museum and stayed at an inn in Bayeaux. 

Then, during the week, we organized each day around lunch, of course, and found new things to see and do that we haven't done or seen. New restaurants, museums and walks in the city we've gotten to know so well.

Monday evening, we went back to our favorite English-speaking bookstore, Shakespeare & Company, which is in the 5th, though this time for their Monday night reading upstairs by a Shakespearean expert with a new book out. We also finally found The Village Voice, another good bookshop, in the 6th on Rue Princesse.

Tuesday evening, we met a childhood neighbor and her boyfriend who live in Paris for dinner, and a few other nights we just brought in dinner at our friends. All breakfasts started at charming and beautiful Cafe Charlot on Rue de Bretagne in the 3rd, where we became quite regulars, some days visiting 2 or 3x. Friday night at Alain and Ann's was the 5th annual Thanksgiving feast, Le Retour V. Each year we add a new dish or decoration (last year Pilgrim hats, previous year sweet potato pie). This year we revised the toast and speech ("le discours"), to the delight of the crowd, to include the Hugenot story in St Augustine FL.

Some more highlights of specific spots if you're lucky enough to go to Paris soon:

New neighborhood explored: Canal St-Martin. Even after 15+ trips to Paris, never realized there was a working canal running through the city just to the east of Republique.

Best meal: Lunch at Le Cave Gourmande du Marc Singer (10 rue du General Brunet) out in the 19th. Not usual place most people go but worth it out there. 

Other Best Meal: Le Timbre, 6th. British chef, French fare. 

Most disappointing meal: Chez L'Ami Jean in the 7th. Great soup (emulsion) but crappy service and overpriced.

Best new sight: Foundation Cartier, 14th. Jean-Nouvel designed exhibition building, currently showing footage and studies of migrants. Compelling.

Best old sight: Waterlillies at L'Orangerie, 1st. Seeing them especially in this space is pretty incredible in the oval room, just as Monet wanted, with no end or beginning.

Best outside, worst inside: Musée du Quai Branly. Another Jean-Nouvel building is the enormous and dramatic Branly on the Quai Branly, just east of the Eiffel Tower in the 7th. Walking up to it is really exciting since it's glass and grass design and landscaping are so cool and innovative. Inside is a huge collection of artifacts from Pacific Rim, Africa, Asia and North America. The thing is, it's so overdesigned that it's really dark and not to be an old person complaining, but I could barely read the descriptions.   

Worth seeing though crumbling a bit: Musée Rodin, 7th. Bryan had never seen the Rodin so we went to see The Thinker and see the other great sculpture in this big place. It's in crummy shape though.

Neighborhood not worth walking around: The 1st, near Place de la Madeline and Opéra. We tried to do a walking tour but got really bored fast. 

Favorite new wine I have to find here: Brully. Light, white, quite delicious.

DRAWING AT THE MET

To become an artist, one should learn from the masters. So, with a thirty-dollar credit to adult education’s The Learning Annex and a free Sunday morning , I signed up for “Drawing at the Met.”

The course description said the class would cover “Light and Shadow,” “Perspective” and “Color,” which all sounded fine, but a lot to do in just two hours. Armed with my graphite pencils, fat eraser and blank sketchbook, I hailed a cab, directing the driver as if I were simply going to brunch: “The Met, please.” (A few blocks later, self-conscious I was being too cavalier, I added: “Not the opera one.”)

The entrance to the Metropolitan Museum of Art is a sight — steps up to a Greco-Roman façade, beneath proud banners announcing exhibits spanning the centuries. At the information desk, two students had arrived, but not yet our group leader. After about ten minutes, Ralph showed up and introduced himself, apologizing for being late, and said we could run a little over to make up for it. Like any art student, I compared his looks to my expectations: clean cut for an artist, thirty-something, handsome, khakis, blue checkerboard oxford and a pair of severe black eye frames.

Trying to be friendly, I shook hands with the three other students: Joel, friendly, fortyish (this was Joel’s third session “Drawing at the Met” -- or second, if you don’t count the time he showed up but went to the wrong desk downstairs and missed the class); Umberto, fiftiesh with a lovely accent; and a young twenty-something woman with frizzy hair who chose not to reveal her name. Mystery is part of the arts, I reasoned, and this is, after all, the scene of the “Thomas Crowne Affair.”

In the Cezanne room in the Impressionist wing. Ralph directed us to choose a painting to draw. He imparted one piece of wisdom: Grip your pencil unlike a pencil so you don’t think too hard.

Confused but excited, I scanned the room of elegant still-lifes, lush landscapes and semi-famous portraits and asked Ralph if we should pick one or the other – for learning purposes, simplicity or otherwise? Ralph looked at me quixotically and said no, it didn’t matter, they were, after all, ALL PAINTINGS.

I thought back to the course description which said Ralph has taught anatomy and perspective. So, seeking to impress, I choose Cezanne’s “Card Players,” a painting of three peasants playing cards with one onlooker. It seemed to have a compelling story about friendship, socioeconomics, and gambling — not to mention it could be drawn sitting down from the bench.

So, on the wood bench in the center of the room, I sat down to copy this piece of art while the other students sought their own muse. Not knowing where to begin, and lacking any direction whatsoever from my well-dressed teacher, I relied on my honed skills from a previous expedition last year with The Learning Annex into art: Cartooning.

I first drew four fat ovals to indicate placement of the four people in the painting. Then, I drew one big square for the card table and small triangles for their noses and ears. For those of you who are neophytes, this is technically known as “blocking.” Or, wait, is that theatre? Over the next fifteen minutes, I refined my sketching and, to my amazement (as well as a tourist next to me), the four people and their scene began to emerge.

Ralph appeared over my shoulder and was pleased. He said, “You are drawing almost like a pro – confident lines, strong perspective…”

Pro?!?! Humbly, I admitted I had taken drawing classes before. He asked where, and assuming childhood classes at the Summit Art Center were not relevant, I said, “Oh through the Learning Annex also: Cartooning for Beginners.” Probably not recognizing the course, Ralph frowned, but offered advice on tone and contrast. He also suggested I get off my duff and get much closer to the painting.

Back up at the wall, I surveyed the room to see how the rest of the class was faring. Umberto drew feverishly, close to his chosen work, a Cote D’Azur landscape; he was chatting with Ralph, seemingly less getting advice and more just talking about art. The woman with no name was barely drawing, moving from picture to picture, still undecided on one. Joel was no where to be seen.

Returning fifteen minutes later, catching me back down at the bench, Ralph didn’t scold but was excited at my progress. “The drawing is coming along nicely,” he said, but was concerned I was thinking about the elements in the painting too much as separate elements. “Think about the negative space within the painting, as well as the continuous lines that let one element flow into the other.”

Perhaps I had a blank look on my face, or maybe I was thinking about lunch, but Ralph suggested I try an old trick of his. “Sometimes,” he explained, “it helps to squint at the work and you see things you wouldn’t otherwise.”

Well, I’ve never been one to turn down an inside tip, so together, in what was probably a storied teacher-student moment (I’ll need to again rent “Pollack”), Ralph and I together squinted at the Cezanne across the way.

Admittedly, I didn’t see much new, but my eyes did get tired, so I nodded gravely that I understood the value of the exercise, thanked him. Getting up to go see about the other students, Ralph told me we would get together at the end to share with each other our work and what we each had learned.

Quite comfortable I was clearly the favorite student, I got back to work with urgency, filling in details on the card table, fixing the men’s hats, and with flourish, drawing more confident dark continuous lines. (Joel, after all, has done the class TWICE.)

Ten minutes later, around the bench, the class gathered. Ralph offered the girl with no name to present her work first, but she declined, uncomfortable with what she had done. I was going to pressure her, but reasoned that maybe she was just there meet guys and perhaps hadn’t drawn anything anyway.

So veteran Joel showed what he drawn, a Renoir still life of fruit. Good varied color, nice black lines. We all offered smiles, encouragement and praise. Umberto then shared his landscape, which was really getting somewhere, and I think he would’ve made better progress if he had spent more time drawing and less time talking to Ralph.

Then I showed my drawing, which got rave reviews, modest applause from Joel, several questions from Umberto, and even a public compliment from Ralph.

Umberto then turned back to Ralph and unleashed a battery of questions on perspective and depth, for the first five of which I stayed. Eventually, though, I needed to eat and interrupted to say goodbye, thanking Ralph and everyone profusely and somewhat genuinely.

At the door, about to enter the Degas room, I was compelled to turn around and observe the group still huddled around the bench. Umberto was asking a question, Joel was listening intently, Ralph was trying to answer, and the woman with no name was looking elsewhere across the room. 

I was quite tempted to sit and draw.

Watersheds in Digital: Past + Future

Just posted this entry to the AdAge Digital Next blog, to which I regularly contribute. 

'boards summit: Talent Panel

Last Friday, I sat on a panel called How to Win the War for Talent at the 'Boards Summit at the Crowne Plaza in New York. Good mix of panelists moderated and led by the fabulous Heidi Ehlers of BlackBag talent consultancy, including Sergio Lopez of Cramer Krasselt, Brian Collins, Monica Buchanan of BBDO, and author Sally Hogshead.

While Heidi had me talk about what to look for in portfolios and how I screen for talent to help digital agencies move closer to brand (I gave out my screening questions for: Screening traditional creatives who can do digital, and screening digital folk who can do brand), others covered how to prepare your portfolio, manage your personal brand, how they sort the fric from the frac, and what the future will require in their agencies. 

I had never read Sally's famous book Radical Careering, so I ran and bought it to catch up.

The conference was two days, with lots of good topics and speakers; and naturally, I didn't leave enough time to attend anything but my own panel ;-)

Subscriptions: Passive reading, active choosing

Most of us are looking over things in our life to cut vs. keep, and magazine subscriptions are the most glaring waste (though I'm not sure how much you really save by cutting). The difficulty is that subscriptions are so inexpensive (e.g. $12-50 for many) compared to buying at the magazine stand. Plus, you can use airline points towards many magazines so the downside ends up being the paper waste and the pain of recycling.

Still, here's my list so far to clean house and mind, not including the freebies:

Keep:

Monocle

The Economist

The New Yorker

Creativity

Glimmer Train 

Zoe All Story

Ad Age

Adweek

Could give up:

New York

HBO

Travel & Leisure

Food & Wine

New Republic

This Week

Communication Arts

Did give up:

Showtime

Netflix

The New York Times Sunday

T-mobile hot spot subscription

Plus I'm using those services, like Green Dimes, to cancel catalogs which is starting to work. Catalogs and other junk mail really bugs me, so I'll be curious to see how much this type of service can help. To be most effective, you have to enter specific catalog info as you get receive them, which is a pain but worthwhile if it works.

Fighting the cold: Comparing remedies

Like many people, I've been suffering from a cold the last few weeks. It started suddenly, brought on by a mix of allergies, cat hair, exhaustion and someone passing it to me. Thanks to a week of back to back presentations and working until 11 or midnight, it's taken longer than it should to kick it. 

One positive outcome is I've had plenty of chances to sample different remedies and compare. For basic stuffy head and running nose type of symptoms, I've switched loyalties from DayQuil (a reliable favorite) to Robitussin Cough & Cold. The change to Dr Mom was big for me, but not only is the bottle smaller, it tastes terrific and I feel less dried out than before. This cold, I also went with liquids rather than pills, and for pills I still recommend Tylenol Cold or Sudafed, which can dry you up like a desert.  At night too, I started with NyQuil and switched to Robitussin. Without alcohol though, it was harder to fall asleep so I'm not sure this was the brightest idea. 

Immunity powders you mix into your water is quite trendy and while I started with Boost for Vitamin C, several kind souls at work left me packets of Emergen-C, which tastes a lot better. I'm also toting around Halls new watermelon flavor, which helps a bit.

Not reviewing tissues. I basically blow my nose in anything handy. Sorry. 

Customer Service outlets

Customer Service is a big pet peeve of mine, and I answer those Rite Aid 800# customer surveys (i could win $10,000e) and the paper surveys at Starwood Hotels and I'll even randomly send in notes to brands I visit with compliments or complaints. It makes me wonder how well we're monitoring complaints and how quickly brands are responding to them and in what way.

I take note of response time, and I'm impressed by recent notes back from Dunkin' Donuts and Jet Blue which uses basic e-mail to respond to queries from their web site. Dunkin Donuts answered my query about styrofoam cups with shared outrage but reminded me that shops are franchises, individually owned. Jet Blue answered my query about breaches in the Customer Bill of Rights, denying that I was due $25.00. I am annoyed by both answers (one, lame; the other, wrong) but I did get a response within 36 hours which helped me feel listened to. Both were sweet-sounding women. I can't tell if they're real or not yet but I am digging.

Of course, there are more modern ways of getting service, such as through microblogging services. Zappos, Jet Blue and BA are on Twitter and are famous for answering customer messages. A savvy writer on my team had Zappos and JetBlue bid against each other for his tax refund.  The Consumerist, Pissed Consumer, and the Squeaky Wheel are all about anger and you getting yours out.  Measured Up is my new favorite, because it includes amusing stories with the expected nasty ones about Time Warner Cable.

Brands should remember, it's not just what the response is which matters; what matters is there is one at all.

7 years

I really hate today. I hate remembering today. I hate how this day was, where today led, what today means, how people suffered, how we all did. 

Tonight, we go downtown and, even though we hate it, we go to remember. 

Middle School

A good friend from childhood notes that her son now has a locker in what was our middle school. The teachers are mostly all new but do we remember Mr X or Ms Y?

A few of us write back, and of course we are stunned. It's one thing to age, but another to have its progress benchmarked by little ones now big. 

Memories flood back, but they're not sharp at all, which is too bad. Springfield has a middle school (grades 5-8), though we tried to pretend it was like junior high school (6-9) on TVs and in the movies or in Millburn which is a much bigger town with great public schools. It's really just a year difference and there are probably books about which is better or worse for kids. Plus, our school system wasn't bad at all and a lot of us even had family working throughout it.

I don't flinch with bad memories or good.

Just spotty events like a 7th grade trip to Sturbridge, MA (probably a first night away for most) and how the school was right across the street from our Temple so going to Hebrew School on Tuesday and Thursdays was easy. The 8th grade show was the big performance. Our year, the theme was sections of a newspaper. Beth and I appropriately did the Real Estate Section (singing "In a Mountain Greenery" which I remember ruining) plus I also was Charlie Brown for the comics and sang a solo "Happiness," which was fun rather than humiliating.

Middle school was still an innocent time, perhaps the last period of it, before we went to high school combined with another town where friendship would be re-aligned and cliques broken and re-organized. Just like it had been when we combined from two sides of town for middle school. 

But our bodies now were maturing, puberty and spin the bottle and 7 minutes in heaven all over the place, our first lockers to lock, and some classes we actually chose. 

 

Like all periods of my life, I remember my extra-curricular activities much more than my schoolwork:

• I was student council president in 8th grade, and had terrific election posters, handmade and everything. 
  
• I was at least a writer for and maybe an editor of both the Gaudinews and the Gaudineer Guardian; Since there was no way there were two papers simultaneously, I suspect we rebranded the paper half-way through but I'll ask Suzanne who remembers everything
  
• In one of our first big choices academically, I chose French with the eclectic intellectuals rather than Spanish with the popular kids or Italian with kids who were Italian (Had I chosen Spanish, I suspect entire worlds would be different, especially a higher GPA in high school when it got really hard and I stopped listening.)
  

The more I write or talk about it, the more that floods back. There was a Girls' Gym and a Boys' Gym. Plus there's hindsight, like realizing that a few teachers were gay after all, and that there's no difference to care about b/w junior and middle school — if you didn't have both. 

two years with and without mach

i knew it was this time of year not because of the calendar but because we were in dumbo, right by his old apartment and i started to say, 'that's where' and bryan finished, 'i know.' there's a starbucks right there and he would be happy or not happy about it but probably happier if it were a peets.

i talk to people a lot about how we act is indelibly shaped by those who taught us. those who taught us wrong or right. mach taught me a lot and i know it was mutual (mostly because he told me).

even though i keep my little green bhudda with me (he gave it to me when i became a cd and left his group), and the silver balls, and thanks to emily, i have a lot of his books, he's not in my thoughts every single day but so very often, i like it and treasure it more because i know i'm doing it.

i like how it reminds me to value design for design's sake. when people ask me what i do, i know it's him i'm channelling when i intentionally say 'writer' instead of creative director or agency person (he always said designer - i did so on my taxes two years but it was silly so i changed it back).

i type in lowercase only because i'm thinking of him. he'd hate that.

if i go somewhere interesting, though, i think how'd he'd like that.
if i wrote something beautiful, i think he'd like that.
if i eat something weird and interesting (allergies permitting), i think how'd he'd like that and maybe even be impressed.
if i meet someone interseting. i think he'd like that person and should meet him too.
i like how mach sticks with me and with all of us.
i like how it's shaped me of the person i have become and what i could be if i thought of him more.

i'm writing a lot more now and i know he'd be very very very happy about that.

but it doesn't mean it doesn't mean it doesn't mean for one even one even one second that i don't miss him.

peace mach. buckets and buckets of peace.

The webs we weave

I leased my personal zucker.com email years ago and while I've migrated to gmail b/c of the better tools and experience, i kept my personal web site hosted by netidentity.com the entire time with few problems and pretty great service. 

Times change, and apparently they sold the web hosting to another company without a) telling people or b) me noticing. My site, matzucker.com disappeared into the void and I've had to jerry-rig a web of pieces from a blog here, a portfolio blog on typepad, a gallery web on .mac/mobileme (which apparently doesn't support Flash!), destination pages from old matzucker.com and more. 

The new site host gave me some basic FTP instructions so I could get part of my site's back end files up but it's only partly working and I've temporarily redirected matzucker.com to my mac .me page until i can re-architect the whole mat zucker dot com digital footprint.

Until then, it's several dixie cups and a string forming a, well, um, web. 

Bryan interviewed on NPR

After being interviewed and quoted in The Wall Street Journal about his texting/broken foot/walking dog incident last year, Bryan was interviewed on a new NPR show called The Takeway this past week: More people turning up in ER with injuries after texting while walking.

Pretty funny piece, and only Bryan can tell a skeptical emergency room doctor and expert that he looks at it a different way as multitasking and how people have to move forward.

First sentence at Paragraph

So I've started at Paragraph, a writer's workspace in Manhattan with a part-time membership. It's amazing, started by two MFA grads who saw a need and started a business around it. There's room filled with cubicles and desks that any member can use. It's super-quiet and orderly with couches in the middle if you need a break or the kitchen/lounge to visit where you can keep stuff in the fridge or make coffee or hang out.

Today is my first day, so I blocked out a few hours to work here on a story I want to finish for submission to some mags. In just the first two hours, I put a really good dent in the editing which shows how much you can get done without any distractions. There's also the tone of feeling like a writer, which must do something on some level. I've just met one other writer briefly and brewed one cup of coffee in the kitchen. Found a bunch of flyers and resources like editors, new books out and members-only events like agents who come by.

iLike the iPint

Marc Schaad showed me this app on the new iPhone software upgrade, Carlsburg beer's iPint. You play a game to get the beer across the bar to your hands (it can be hard, since your phone responds to gravity) and then you fill the glass and then the kicker is you hold it up to your mouth and can drink it.  Then you can send a friend an ipint.

It's silly and fun, infectious and terrific. Skeptics can pick it a part as a non-differentiating etc but screw you, they did it first. We're all jealous. Now I'm showing it to anyone who will listen. 

And I'm not even a big beer fan. Imagine what the American think.

A week siesta on the outer cape

I love this picture Bryan took of man and dog, crashed out in the second bedroom of the apt we rented in Provincetown, right on the water. 

Great week of great weather and perfect rental. Mornings with coffee paper and sometimes dog on one of several different beaches. Brought lunch back to the apartment and then hung out on the bay beach outside our door or stayed in and worked on some short stories I am revising. 

Off the grid - Pilgrims rule

So we're off on vacation, thank goodness.

First to James Taylor at Tanglewood, which we've never done before despite Bryan's folks having a house nearby

Then to Boston to see friends before our rental starts in Provincetown. We've rented in Provincetown twice before and it's terrific - fairly inexpensive and close to the beach and the beaches are terrific. Usually, we go early in the morning, bring lunch and then come home in the heat of the sun and I write all afternoon and then start drinking. we don't do the party scene as much as we do the sunset/sunrise scene. We vary beaches along the Cape, visiting others. We love WASPY stuff and the Cape is full of it and them. It's also refreshing to be away from New Yorkers (no offense) and with the New Englanders who are of a different ilk.

This time, we expect to play tennis (bought BJF his first racquet and we need to break it in) plus he'll probably make me bike again. We're bringing Ezra of course and we can bring him to the beach in the morning which is great. We had terrific pictures from last time (2 yrs ago) and I hope to do a few more good shots of him. It's so nice to go on vacation with the pup, and it's like we get to know each other all over again. Of course, sometimes I think every day is the same day for him over again.

Bryan grew up being denied lobster (I, a product of foreclosure banking in the 80s, was shoveled it like Shredded Wheat), so I hope we have lots of it for lunch and dinner. 

Otherwise, I have plenty of books to read and DVDs to re-watch.

Today, a sleep check-in

While I usually look forward to going to the doctor (catching up on magazines, time alone in the waiting room, free water), today I am not enthusiastic at all about today's visit. It's a check-up for my sleep regimen, to the dental specialist who gave me over five thousand dollars in oral retainers. I've been pretty good about the night one but wonder if I'll be scolded or worse if I haven't made any discernable progress. I can't imagine how many more weeks of wearing this thing at night I can tolerate.

I usually know where to go
After years of having doctors all over Manhattan, I decided to consolidate with one street on the Upper East Side. There, along one 2-avenue stretch is my internist, allergist, gastro-interologist, ear-nose-and-throat and of course the Sleep Center. The exception really is this dentist, which is much closer to work on Madison Avenue. I like him, but I hate both my retainers.

Their combined effect, one from day wear and one from night, is to pull my jaw forward which will have things line up more nicely and better air flow at night. This also relieves pressure on my left side of my head, which will relieve the occasional pain I get in my shoulder and also result in my ability to lift dozens or hundreds (I forget what he said) of extra pounds at the gym. This is a correction from how my mouth shifted after my wisdom teeth were removed and from the untold damage from my orthodontics. The braces bit really bugs me since it's more proof of the damage my parents did to me through how they chose medical care; the orthodontist was a client of my dads and they bartered law work and braces.

It's working
Bryan says that he hasn't noticed I'm snoring at all anymore. This means the correction is totally working, or I wasn't really snoring in the first place and Bryan feels really bad.

Open Table for Mobile ;-)

Woo-hoo. I'm an avid OpenTable user and have so for years. The points are fine but the sheer convenience of the service -- being able to browse good restaurants, book exact times, change your mind a 100 times all without a phone call to a reservations line. 

Now it's mobile - mobile.opentable.com or even better, the app for your Blackberry or LG phone. Can't wait to try it.

Back from Cannes

Back from the Cannes International Advertising Festival.

A week of seeing and talking about work, drinking and mayhem. None of our stuff made shortlists but our expectations were low this year. Just this year.

In fact, the only worry I had all week was whether or not I'd make it from the bar to the toilet.

Photo is of Napolean's summer palace, at Eden Roc, where we had a ww work dinner.

I didn't blog because I twitter'd. So there. Some photos at my flickr album.

Off to Cannes Lions Festival

Leaving tonight for the Cannes International Advertising Festival, in Cannes, France. Cringing with excitement. Will be there about 4 days. Last year went for too long so this year is abbreviated.

Among other activities, will be twittering regularly and posting to flickr.com. Hope also to see fantastic work from around the world in film, press, cyber, direct/promo, radio and more. Yet simultaneously minimize ad-douche encounters. We'll see how that goes.

Night device

Oh no this is the new night retainer. It's kinda fancy and elaborate. Surprisingly light. Must dunk in warm water before use. It's a living thing. Hello new jaw line in 6 sweet weeks.

Taste the mint

Really loving mint.com, financial management software. 

It's more than a regular (which I was a big fan of 10 years ago), but it also spots trends and makes recommendations along the way. It's alive. Like your money. 

Try it out.

Ezra, it's not even summer yet

As it gets warmer, my dog gets more tired. He follows me around room-to-room but he also eschews (nice use of eschews i know!) fabric for colder wood floors. We have a lot of fans in our place -- ceiling fans, floor fans and a/c when it gets actually hot. 

Write-A-Thon

"A writer's job is to show up at the page"

With the generous support of 10 family and friends, I participated Saturday in The New York City Writers Coalition annual Write-A-Thon. The NYCWC runs free writing programs throughout New York City, serving everyone from the elderly to niche communities to the underprivileged and regular folk (ha!) like me to the homeless too. 

What the Write-A-Thon was like:
More than fifty people came together at the charming library of the General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen in Midtown to, as the ad said, "Write Your A** Off!" 

To register, you needed to raise at least $150 (with you I raised over $575), which means they raised in a one day event about $34,000! That's $10,000 more than last year.  The top fundraisers did $2,800, $2,500 and $1,800. I won a prize including a subscription to the Bellevue Literary Review and gift pack from Month of the Novel with a mug that says "Can't Talk; Novelling."

What I liked:
The Write-A-Thon had a loose structure, but you could ignore it or follow it as much you wanted. It was set up so you could write at tables with paper or laptop from 10:30-6PM and come and go as you like. Fluid, like writing.

If you got stuck, though, you could visit the "Prompt" table and pull out of an envelope a prompt to get you going. I was working on a short story based on the Sleep Study I did last month and wasn't stuck but curious. So I went up to the table and grabbed a few prompts:

• "Think of an addiction you or your character has"
  
• "Write a letter by someone from the inside of a burning building"
  
• (On the paper is a Walt Whitman poem called Miracles) "Now write about a miracle."
  
• "Draw a quick outline of your body and put an X at every scar site. Now write about how you got one of those scars or how a character got scarred."
  

Throughout the day, there were free hour-and-half writing workshops for which you could register led by a facilitator from NYCWC. At lunch, Pulitzer finalist Colson Whitehead (for John Henry; he also wrote several other books and has written for the NYT Op-Ed) gave a talk about his insights on the craft, advice for writers, and his personal story and starting at the Village Voice.

I took at 2PM workshop which was, naturally, 7 other women and me (actually the whole day's participants was a mix of races and ages but about 75% women). 

The leader gave us two writing assignments with 15 minutes of writing based on a prompt and then whoever wanted to could read theirs aloud and others could say (only) positive things. This was interesting to me since my undergrad workshops at Cornell were pretty ruthless critiques. But they explained today that since it's just 15 minutes of writing being shared, it's not enough for serious criticism and people should just say what they liked or what stayed with them.

I dreaded the other writers sharing, worried most would be quite amateur but was struck by how sophisticated and compelling everyone's off-the-cuff writing was. Witty, funny, emotional, surprising endings. I can see why people love workshops so much when they're very good. My leader Alex found me at the coffee table afterwards and chatted a bit about the workshops she runs for the elderly (which sound terrific). What I learned when we said goodbye however was this: She just quit her job in advertising (where she's been a copywriter and a brand planner) to go to a MFA program in creative writing at Sarah Lawrence.  (I'll just end with that optimistic thought.)

Thanks again for the support, and I'll let you know when next year is in case you want to come and write with me!

Waiting for Squirrel

Ezra's chief nemesis is Squirrel, the furry beady little creature who jumps from tree to tree outside Ezra's deck and threatens his turf. Sometimes, he even dares to brazenly run right across the iron deck fence only yards from the apartment door. 

When Ezra spots Squirrel, he goes absolutely bananas, jumping hard against the glass deck door and if it's open, running out to the deck to bark him away.

Ezra also spots Squirrel (he thinks there's only one) out on the street in the front of the house.  He occasionally chases after him and once or twice, he got frighteningly close.

I shudder if Ezra ever got his paws and mouth on Squirrel. I don't care about the spiry rat, but I do worry about what his claws could do to the pup. 

may is not flowers

Staples customer service has already written me back, sending me a link to their green customer service procedures. Very nice except it still doesn't explain why the 100% recyled paper is buried down in the basement.

I have bigger issues to contend with:

1/ the sleep saga continues - went to the top oral/apnea specialist in the city today and being fitted with a mouthpiece to sleep with. apparently, all is to be blamed on my orthodonist from childhood, when my jaw was pushed back. i guess my dad bartering law work for orthidonture wasn't such a good idea.

2/the city is announcing single-stream recycling (no longer have to separate) but I'm the only one apparently who gets why this is such a breakthrough. People seem more interested in vista/mac nonsense when this is something that actually affects most folk.

3/iron man was great

4/report grades are silly

i have never been good at these things so it's important that i continue to make fun of them. of course, if i did well in them, i wouldn't make fun of them but there ya go...

5/linked in

i just hate it. i closed my network. i just can't handle the exposure. go ahead, parasites, link in to me. it will get you no where. 

Yeah, they got that (if you can find it)

Adopting the green bug is harder than it seems.

I go to Staples to buy 100% recycled paper for our home printer, and I have to walk past reams and reams of earth-killing wasteful non-recyclable paper and then go downstairs to hunt for the green stuff. There's a small row of it, which I proudly buy

At the cashier, I gently ask the cashier if they couldn't make it more prominent but he ignores me. (This is only worse than a cashier uptown at a deli I frequent who didn't know the Olympic Games were coming to China this summer)

After Twittering about it, I realize that Twittering is just venting and I can do much more by writing to Staples about it. You can too. Ask them to make the 100% recyclable paper more prominent. They should be leading the effort, not just making token effort.

At the urinal, not looking

While I recently learned in my sleep test follow-up that 'spontaneous arousals' did indeed mean slightly waking up from sleep (and nothing more you naughty voyeurs), my dream state was interrupted much more suddenly seeing that my first AdAge Digital Next blog posting on beloved packets had garnered 0 comments. 

This is, of course, compared to Armano's 14 comments on relationship renaissance and 6 for Daitch's charming 4-year-old and her grandma. Not that I compare but what if I did. What if you do?!?!?

The #1 worry this time of year

Treff reminded me that the #1 worry this time of year (yes, it's a seasonal campaign) is of course:

The angel of death passing by your door, taking the first born.

I have a couple of remedies, however, for those wondering or anxious:

1. Don't be the first born

2. Don't be the second born (back up plan in case the 1st born is adopted)

3. Throw lambs blood on your door (works like a charm)

Happy Pesah.

They're not going the wrong way

So I'm deep into the new season of BSG, and we all knew it was going to happen but for the first time, I sense them coming, no matter what Starbuck says about them going the wrong way. I feel them. Close. 

In fact, sometimes I look at our dog and wonder if he's the final cylon, and they're already here among us. Then, he licks me on the lips and I know he's not. So I turn to Bryan...

Decisions

I am now to be a regular contributor to the  AdAge digital next blog. This now has me wondering (and worrying) if I should evolve this into a more creative marketing-focused blog, start yet another wanker marketing blog, or just eschew peer pressure and keep on as a regular human and sharing regular worries. 

Okay that was easy, thanks.

Sleep Study Results!

Well I got the Sleep Final Report, and though I don't understand a word of it, here are some highlights (aside from one typo I found):

• Time in Bed (TIB): 415 min.
  
• Total Sleep Time (TST): 386 min.
  
• Sleep Efficiency: 93.0%  (this is pretty impressive for a creative)
  
• # inter sleep/wake: 3.9%
  
• REM Onset: 120.5 min
  

And then:

• Wake During Sleep: 15.5
  
• Total Wake Time: 29.0 (must've been when they brought in the mask)
  
• % wake: 7.0
  
• Total number of leg movements: 0  (i suppose this means I don't have restless leg syndrome)
  
• EKG: no abnormalities

Now, I don't want to be too impersonal, but I did find mention of spontaneous arousals, which I don't know if it means wake-ups due to breathing or arousals, in the, you know... French sense. So until I know what that means, I won't be sharing those numbers.

The study is actually broken up into sections so there's too much detail to report, but I will share that my sleep efficiency broke the 90's in every section and I can only assume this is very very good. 

There's mention of the CPAP phase (when they woke me up to put on that nose/air mask to see how I would do) and that also seem to go well, earning me "Patient tolerated the procedure well."

More later.

Earth Hour

I completely forgot about earth hour Saturday (in fact I think I was riding up + down at the elevator at work annoyed to be working on a weekend), and now what if the another piece of Antarctica breaks off, flooding Broome Street (where Ted Baker store is), and it's my fault. 

I'll turn some lights off tomorrow for a few hours and recycle some words some words some words. 

8 Days without a good night sleep.

It's been a week since the sleep study and I have not received my results. 

Did I fail? Are they hiding something from me? Did they order an oxygen mask for me and awaiting its delivery? Should I not be sleeping at all?

(Oddly, Bryan hasn't complained about snoring.)

Wired to Sleep

The Ear/Nose/Throat doctor recommends the Sleep Study, so she can better advise me on treating the alleged snoring (I say alleged, because I've never heard myself snore, but others claim it so), which if it's sleep apnea can lead to dangerous health issues later. The sleep study is covered by insurance, and it's an adventure, you betchya.

I arrive at  Sleep Center (in the brownstone above the ENT office, on the Upper East Side, only a few doors down from my primary physician, my allergist and gastro!) a bit early, so I call Adam and Jen in Baltimore to let them know what I'm up to. Adam tells me to ask for the sleep tape the next morning as a keepsake (youtube?), and  Jen says she has a friend who has done this before, but she won't tell me the result of her friend's experience (probably judicious of her but it does get me a little nervous).

Rachel greets me and takes me upstairs. 

Lovely, personable, splits here week between upstate and NYC, Rachel shows me to a pleasant and well-furnished bedroom (like a decent hotel), walking me through what to expect. We agree on what time to go to sleep (10PM). This matters, since it's when I'll get all hooked up, the cameras and sound go on too, and it'll be more difficult to move around so it's best to just go to bed.

Rachel points out the intercom next to the bed, which I won't need until later, and the camera which won't be on until the study officially begins when I go to sleep. For now, I just have to fill out some forms that give permission to be recorded, releasing my records to whatever doctors I list (I list my primary and allergist, though consider putting my father-in-law who's got a PhD and would be amused to receive such a report — I do have some x-rays of his from years ago for some reason).

So until 10PM, I simply talk on the phone and watch TV, flipping around until I find the French film "The Dreamers." I think it's pretty amusing to watch this the night of a sleep test, so I leave it on. Of course, it's a bit naughty which only gets awkward when 9.45 rolls around and Rachel comes in to start to connect me.

I sit on the edge of the bed as she hooks up various colorful wires with a paste, explaining each one and what it's for.  Each wire also goes into a box which will sit next to me.

• 2 to the calves to sense restless leg syndrome (apparently it does exist)
  
• 1 to the heart for heartbeat
  
• 2 to the side of the eyes to sense when I'm asleep
  
• 1 to the chin to sense the jaw dropping which signals I entered the REM stage
  
• 1 just inside the nose to sense breathing
• 4 to the head for brainwaves
• 2 behind ears, which are goofy and I don't remember what for

As Rachel wires, on the TV behind her I see one of the many sex scenes going on on the movie. I apologize, suggesting she turn it off since it's so awkward. She's sweet about it, and says she didn't even notice, though what was weirder for her was a few weeks ago when a woman slept naked for the sleep study.

In addition to the wires, Rachel shows me several air masks that I might need during the night to see if they help if I stop breathing at all, a sign of sleep apnea. The least intrusive is the nose mask which only covers your nose. There also is one for the mouth and one for both.

Wired and tired, we manoevuer me into bed, she wishes me goodnight and I turn off TV and the lights. I can move about okay but it seems to work best if I sleep on my back or side. I usually sleep on my front so I tell myself I'm on a red eye, which works brilliantly. I am asleep within 20 minutes, though she does wake me up in the middle of the night. 

It's disappointing since it means I stopped breathing and she wants to try the nose mask to see if it helps or not. I grudgingly put it on, she turns on the air and I lay back down as the air pumps in through the mask.  It's not that uncomfortable, though I consider lying about it so I'm not prescribed it later if it works. The good thing is, I'm tired enough to fall back asleep and the next thing I know, Rachel is at my side again, waking me up. It's about 5.30AM.

"You did very well," she tells me, though she's not allowed to elaborate any detail until I get my report in about a week. 

I get changed, pack up. She gives me a tip about getting the paste out of my hair and I set off to the gym to shower. It's 6AM and it's too early to call anyone so I simply walk up the street, happy and wide awake.

 

What I'm not doing

Now I'm worried by what I'm not doing while I update this worry blog:
1. Physical fitness
2. Writing chapter two of the novel
3. Writing chapter one of the novel
4. Finish short story three
5. Talking to Bryan
6. Playing with Ezra
7. Calling a friend

8. Txting a friend
9. Making a friend
10. Calling electrician to fix out bulb on 2nd floor
11. Working on the Big Idea
12. Working on the Passover Seder
13. Working on Plan B
14. Finding a new favorite font instead of Helvetica
15. Choosing a video camcorder that works with Mac
16. Sending inspirational notes to people who deserve it
17. Sending flames to people who deserve it

18. Learning to podcast my own talk show

19. Working on the next entry (wait... that's contrary to...)