Liquidity

Anticipating a morning of reading aloud at Lighthouse Int'l. from a third edition textbook on Java, I was apprehensive. However, even reading about an object oriented programming language can provide some poetry and some needed connecting of some of my lazier components of my own neural network. Java (from Sun Microsystems). From Wikipedia (since I can't exactly ask to take the textbook home):

Java uses an automatic garbage collector to manage memory in the object lifecycle. The programmer determines when objects are created, and the Java runtime is responsible for recovering the memory once objects are no longer in use. Once no references to an object remain, the unreachable becomes eligible to be freed automatically by the garbage collector. Something similar to a memory leak may still occur if a programmer's code holds a reference to an object that is no longer needed, typically when objects that are no longer needed are stored in containers that are still in use....

Now that's very nice for a computer program. But I'd like to see it applied non-theoretically to one's brain (or the brain of any aging relative). It just sounds cool ... and effective. The photo? My 74 year old dad shoveling snow of the roof of the little house he built for my grandmother. Wow. Just... wow.

In other news, I'm still recoving from a wonderful night in Brooklyn, celebrating A.'s birthday at Union Hall. Great to see old friends and just hang out. Naturally, since I was with S., we continued the convivery (is that a word? If not, it should be) at Oscar on MacDougal Street, where I met the owner, a wonderful, brilliant man who is going to hook me up with the architect I need to build my treehouse. Well, we'll see about that but hey. Good times...

Note: D. Leshem. Where ARE you?

Baseball and Bridges

I like baseball. Quite a bit. Okay, not enough to actually blog about it but I'm a consistent quasi-fan who once went to a Yankees parade (1996. And those are not for the faint of heart) And J. who once dated a cop from upstate, actually went to that World Series (I think it was) and entered the stadium on a horse! (I think that's how it happened. I remember he wore a pinky ring and they broke up soon after, though I'm not sure any of this is related except tangentially and for ... color commentary for whatever it's worth.)

All this to say, I had nice afterwork rendezvous with C. at Ideya, the fun Jamaican joint on W. Broadway.

The experience was made even more delightful by a late-meal sighting of Ken Burns at the table near us. His life's work to date is simply incredible, both in volume and quality, and all the more amazing in its breadth and depth -- and subjects: how cool! Jazz! Architecture Baseball! Radio! And more than a dozen other impeccably forged pieces. He's a hero of mine, truth be told.

Years ago, I was a documentary filmmaker for about twenty minutes, post-TSOA -- with a still-yet-to-be unearthed gem of a video called "Working Dreams," presumptive analogue to Studs Terkel's wonderful Working, created with old friend Janine and great DP Doug Shannon... It languishes in 3/4" obscurity. We interviewed subject ranging from a chimney sweeper to Pam, a Bloomingdale's perfume sprayer. But I digress.

Ken's Brooklyn Bridge is closest to my heart; I'll tell you why some other time.

Anyway. Happy to see the guy; happy to know he had some good grub tonight. Happy there are people like him in the world, here and now, actively preserving the past in a way that makes one almost certain there is hope for the future.