Twenty-four hours in New York

I was staying in Boston so decided to go to New York for 24 hours and visit our Tripbod person there. The Peter Pan bus was great apart from the 8am stop to get something to eat when all there was was burger or pizza. To my suprise the other passengers all returned with greasy parcels in their hands. 8am.

I arrived in NY and met Scott. We walked around the city centre down to Madison Square where we saw a queue of around 50 people for what is apparently one of the best places to get burger in all of NY and it was just a kiosk. We passed the New York library - the famous location of Ghostbusters.

We walked through the farmers' market in Union Square. Apparently NY state is so much bigger than people realise and they have a lot of their own produce, including wine. I didn't realise how small Manhatten was until my sister showed me the map. I said, 'that can't seriously be a real map'. It had far too many straight lines.

We passed a closed-up building where Scott (a political student) had recently held an occupation against its closure and the policies of his University President. They got arrested and now face hefty legal fees. So they throw warehouse parties to raise the fees. The parties regularly get shut down by the police and they face more legal fees so have more parties. That's the life of anarchist for you.



We took the Statten Island ferry and I felt a sense of the people who first arrived here once upon a time. Anyone with a name that couldn't be pronounced got americanized. How times have changed. Some parts of New York should stay on the big screen, like the Statue of Liberty. Or else someone should give it a clean and get rid of the green rust.

They have just built their first Ikea in NY and there is a special ferry that runs from the store to a wealthy NY district. For reasons unknown, the opening of an Ikea store always needs a mention.


There were some interesting characters on the boat. A couple of guys were wearing peruvian style wooly hats in 28 degrees centigrade. This appears to be NY fashion of today. Another guy was sporting NY fashion of several years back. He was wearing a full multicoroured shell suit, had a Fresh Prince of Bel Air hair cut and was carrying an actual boom box.

As we headed through Wall Street I saw my stereotype of a typical NY woman (that is, Sex and the City) looking pristine in her well-cut suit, cashmere sweater, heels and pearls looking impatient with one arm full of large box shopping bags and one arm flagging down a taxi. She could have been made from wax from where I were standing.

We heading out towards Brooklyn as it was time for a pint of water and a pint of beer. There was a great bar serving local beers such as Blue Top and with 3pm-8pm happy hour we sweated the early evening away in the concrete beer garden out back.


View Larger Map

In the evening we walked in to Williamsburg and down Bedford Ave there are loads of great places to eat, drink and hang out. Its full of young lively people sitting outside shops, on benches eating icecream, talking loudly and playing guitars. I saw something I dubbed a 'Highcyle' - basically a bicycle with 2 frames stacked on top of one another so it looked double decker. We stopped at Dumont Burger for something to eat which was pretty good.


The next day it was raining so much that we decided to give Central Park a miss and have brunch in a place Scott's girlfriend used to work at called Noho Star. The owner is almost a celebrity. Once a well respected doctor, he opened this place 20-25 years ago. Now he has many different restaurants all over the place. He famously once offered $5,000 if someone could find out the recipe for a tuna sandwich from another restaurant. This place has a lot of charismatic regulars. One guy always has to have a full glass of ice next to him or else he starts banging his glass on the table. He orders ice cream after every meal and if you put the spoon down before the ice cream, he throws the spoon at the waitress. Bright red lipstick is part of the uniform here. They get paid only $2/hr which means they even have to pay tax out of their tips. Many of the NY hostesses are models and a headshot is always required.


The NY subway is in a bad condition. It is infrequent and regularly delayed. It wasn't as scary as my images of it from the movie Ghost but it was not convenient. The transport department are expanding the service to the wealthier areas and even repainting stations there instead of improving services down town. They are also increasing fares to support this work. Scott and his girlfriend are not happy about this at all.

So my time was up and I ran to the bus station as I found out I'd booked my ticket for the wrong day and had to buy a whole new ticket. I hate it when budget travel ends up costing you a fortune. My trip to NY was great but too short. My biggest regret - not trying a slice of NY pizza. I'll have to go back with more time and a bigger appetite next time.

Who are journalists?

This morning, watching the BBC correspondent in Afghanistan reporting, I thought to myself, who is this guy? What qualifies him to tell me what's happening there? It brought back to mind the stories of reporters flooding in Pakistan in the early 90s, all staying in the Hilton, desparate for a story but without access to any real people, without any depth of knowledge on the situation (3 Cups of Tea, Greg Mortenson). I thought, wouldn't it be better if our news came to us via experts on that area. We can foresake the journalist 'quality' of language for some real insight in my opinion.

Then I came across this article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2009/jun/15/fiction-poetry

Perhaps it is not the end of newspapers but the beginning of a new era.

Iran's political system

From Buzzfeed

Gazprom song

Addictive watching

Scarily cool

What NOT to do!

Turn away now

"Internally displaced people, fleeing a military offensive in the Swat valley, reach for bread ration at the UNHCR (United Nations High Commission for Refugees) Jalozai camp, about 140 km (87 miles) north west of Pakistan's capital Islamabad May 26, 2009.

REUTERS/Ali Imam"

The photo together with the words do little to explain the stories of these people. It is only from reading a recent book about rural pakistani villages that I get a feeling for where these people have come from and how traumatic and devastating this scene is.

Reporters may scribble down notes about their true human stories but I don't think that they fully feel and understand these people. And I think it shows in the photography. In turn, generic images make readers turn away rather than feel drawn to help.

Excess Baggage

The first chapter of Alain De Botton's book 'The Art of Travel' is one that I frequently return to. He refers to the incongruence of the anticipation and reality of travel and the inevitable dissapointment.

"I was to discover an unexpected continuity between the melancholic self I had been at home and the person I was to be on the island", Bottom writes. We expect that we will be able to escape ourselves on holiday but yet our selves seem to follow us there. "It seems we may best be able to inhabit a place when we are not faced with the additional challenge of having to be there". This take on travel warms me with the hopelessness of humans trapped within themselves. The simple act of dislocation will not help you to escape your worries, your thoughts and your heavy subconscience.

Whilst we are in the country, the weighty presence of our body and conscience eclipse the most valuable aspects of our surroundings but when we are not there "there is a purity both in the remembered and in the anticipated visions of a place: it is the place itself that is allowed to stand out". The planning and reminiscing are as valuable as the trip itself.

I am going through a process of arm chair travelling at the moment. Exploring countries and cultures through books. However I would still like to feel the soil beneath my feet.

The Life You Can Save

Peter Singer, The Life You Can Save

Human Foil

Richard Long, A Line Made by Walking (1967)
Guardian article, by Robert MacFarlane

Making the connection

Currently reading 'Three Cups of Tea'. A story about Greg Mortenson in Pakistan founding the Cenral Asia Institute. His dedication to the project is made possible because of his passion for the culture and the people. Once he connected with the Balti people in a meaningful way, he was impassioned to help them in a significant way. I'm not saying that we are all capable of acheiving what he did but I think it shows the importance of the initial connection with a place. If he hadn't been taken in by the Balti people, he would have carried on as a climber, thanking his Balti sherper for their services with a one-time tip. Instead he returned and built a school, and then another, and then another...

Central Asia Institute

Customer support in online travel

It makes absolute sense that as consumer skepticism is growing with the rise of the internet and bootleg companies that customer support becomes a valuable differentiator. Internet travel companies have the ability to show off a vast variety of exciting produce and services collected from the far corners of the earth but where there are long distances involved, quality assurance, support services and guarantees are essential. And I don't mean user reviews. It can be complicated and difficult to provide but it is what the customer expects. If there isn't a number you can call, why not?

ATG have a great e-commerce optimization service called 'Click to Call' or 'Click to Chat'

Revival of the blog

Right, this is my pledge to keep my blog active and interesting. One new thing everyday - think I can do it? Who wants a bet?

I have been very quiet as I my life has taken a new course in the past few months. I have gone from Dot, doing advertising in Moscow, to Dot, working in responsible travel in London.

There are all sorts of unseen and intangible parts of my self that are being a bit slow to adapt. I sometimes feel like a rabbit caught in the headlights. I think often changes are more difficult to deal with than you realise. Logically, it isn't going to have dramatic affects on your person but if you try to look forward to look back, and think how you will reflect on this change in 40 years time, you realise that it is a sharper turn in your path through life, or a bigger cross road than you can see from in the thick of it. You need to take time to absorb, let yourself be taken by it and most importantly, not panic!

That's enough about me. There will be more from now on about travel and being a good traveller as well as the usual mix of thoughts on visual culture, advertising and my usual ideas and thoughts on what its like to be a person in this world.

Musings

'To muse' comes from an Galo-Roman word muza or snout. It literally means "to stand with one nose in the air" or to "sniff about". It has a feeling of being lost in thought and also being idle.
'A Muse' on the other hand comes from Greek 'mousa' which means 'song, music'. Does that mean that the most important of the arts was once music? Its interesting that oral art was once so much stronger than visual. I think the invention of the book had a lot to do with that, then the camera and video camera. Now we sit for hours in front of screens, reading, looking, interpreting. Wouldn't it be nice to rest our eyes and let our ears do all the work, filling with exotic and new sounds, deep and complex sounds. When you hear a piece of music does it take you on a journey or are we loosing the ability to interpret and imagine with our ears?
'To muse' according to the root of the word doesn't require the use of your eyes either. It uses your nose to feed your thought. It is taking in the air around you and letting it fuel your imagination.
I'm going to make an effort to spend more time with my eyes closed, my nose in the air and my ears pricked.

2009 - Year of Youth in Russia

Yahoo news

Yahoo news seems to gather the most imaginative stories from around the world. Here's a great example of a story so rich in images, so fanstasical that I feel it should have some deeper significance. But I don't think it does, and I like it all the more for it.

'Toddler Weds Dog To Avoid Indian Tiger Doom'

The ceremony, at a Hindu temple in Orissa state's Jajpur district,was conducted with all the rituals observed at traditional weddings.

It included a dowry for the bride - the village bitch.

The dog sported two silver rings and a silver chain, the UNI news agency reported.

Parents of the groom, 18-month-old Sangula, were advised to arrange the marriage when they noticed a tooth growing from their infant son's upper gum.

The growth was considered to be a bad omen in the boy's tribal community.

Village elders believed it would lead to him being killed in a tiger attack - a fate preventable, according to tribal tradition, by marrying a dog.

Sanrumula Munda, Sangula's father, said the ceremony would not stop him from marrying properly when he comes of age.

Superstition is still a potent force in tribal and remote communities of India.

Brain training

Try this site for a good way to procrastinate, Ali! You can not only feel like you're being productive by working on essential skills but you are also 'exercising' of sorts. Perfect. Don't do it for too long though as I can feel my wrinkles getting deeper as I'm squinting at the screen trying to beat me own scores. You'll have the brain of a 20 year old but the face of a 50 year old.

www.lumosity.com

What came first, the human or the brand?

I read this quote from Tom Peter's article 'Brand called you':

“No matter what you're doing today, there are four things you've got to measure yourself against. First, you've got to be a great teammate and a supportive colleague. Second, you've got to be an exceptional expert at something that has real value. Third, you've got to be a broad-gauged visionary—a leader, a teacher, a farsighted "imagineer." Fourth, you've got to be a businessperson—you've got to be obsessed with pragmatic outcomes. It's this simple: you are a brand. You are in charge of your brand. There is no single path to success. And there is no one right way to create the brand called You. Except this: Start today. Or else.”

It seems to me to be a very narrow vision of a brand. I agree that we are all building our own brands which is the same as building a public person, creating the right impression on others which ultimately helps you to reach your goals. You could say that building brands takes lessons from human instinct as people came first and we intuitively create personas for ourselves in many different ways. I'm not sure if I like the threatening tone of this quote. I mean since when did brands dehumanise us, shouldn't we be humanising brands? Fair enough it was written in 1997, I like to think we've moved on since then.

Dylan Moran - I recommend watching all of his videos on YouTube!

Bill Bailey - I recommend watching all of his videos on YouTube

Follow your star... Or not

This article cheered me up on a sunday evening browsing online newspapers. I have always like astrology. I haven't decided whether I believe it or not but I like to read my star sign. I get a really good feeling when it rings true and don't lose anything when it makes no sense to me at all. When they issue instructions, it is always a positive, motivational message which never goes amiss. In my opinion its just a bit of information which you can choose to take on board or forget completely but there's not harm in reading it. The process of assessing yourself or your situation, or preparing yourself for the week ahead is a fruitful one in my opinion, whatever leads you in to it. I find it a kind of cheap indulgence reading about yourself and you can claim it to be 'utter rubbish' if its not what you wanted to hear. Either way you can't lose.

I have chosen to embrace fully the findings that famous writers are more likely to be Gemini, which just happens to be my star sign:

"A Borders survey of the 150 bestselling authors found they were evenly distributed across the zodiac signs, apart from Gemini, which was twice as likely to be the star sign of famous scribes and scribblers. The 27 great writers born under the twins include Chaucer, Salman Rushdie, Thomas Hardy, Leo Tolstoy, Margaret Drabble and Jodi Picoult". (timesoneline)

I don't know what it all means but it looks like there's a lot of knowledge in this picture

Wallpaper

Apparently the colour red helps you pay attention to detail and work more efficiently (when you are in danger your mind will be focused). Blue makes you more happy and therefore more creative. As far as research in to the effect of colours go, I like this one. It sounds pretty believable to me. I have a nice blue happy blog but I definitely don't have enough red in my everyday colour scheme.



I noticed recently that on my home computer wallpaper I have a night time, red toned picture of the Bosphorous in Istanbul. On my work computer I have a day time, blue toned picture of the Bosphorous in Istanbul. I did not purposely coordinate my wallpapers and as it seems, I got the colours the wrong way around. It may be why my presentations at work are full of pictures and hypotheses and lack the details to back it all up.





The wallpaper that you choose is always difficult. To some extent it doesn't matter but the point is that you HAVE to choose one, which automatically makes your choice a significant one. It depends on whether your computer is a private place for you(home computer) or public space (office computer). Sometimes I put a personal wallpaper on my home computer and suddenly feel very self conscious when my computer is under the eye of another. I feel like I should explain my wallpaper somehow to justify it otherwise it is just sort of left hanging like a pink elephant.

My last choice of wallpaper was done like this: I firstly decided on a photograph of my own rather than a picture from the internet. I have had some good pictures from the internet which have made great wallpapers. I hade one of a horse race of people in horse costumes on a real race track which tickled me when I turned on the screen in the morning.

This black and white one of the Russian poet Mayakovsky is one I frequently return to. I tile it up so there are a multitude of his angry confrontational eyes staring at me. I like it because they demand something from me, they make me feel, act, think:



As for the two Bosphourous photos, not only did I go for two landscapes but also two water views. I am lead to think that this means that I want to look out through my screen and seem something vast and expansive beyond and through my computer. The computer screen is a window to the unkown, to new lands, new horizons and it is a journey of sorts.

Computer wallpaper - a great specimen of visual culture.

Evolution of brand marketing

Musical cats

I wish I’d taken a video of my cat when I play the clarinet. She climbs up on to ledges and takes flying leaps on to my head, climbs around my neck which I’m playing, as if she wants to play too. All the time she’s crying out and purring. She’s also managed to climb up my leg and up the length of my body and then sit on my head. She’s a bit big for it now though so she just sits on the floor singing along or climbs along the piano keys providing an accompaniment of sorts.

Top 10s

This is how it should be, Top Tens, not Top 100s.

Top Ten Lists

Russia No.2

In Russia the attitude towards social sites helps to define young people's attitude to groups vs individuality. This is a quote from a Russian person:

"For a long time, I haven't wanted to be part of some group and give myself a name - so that society can put a tag on me? No thanks. I think that is also a trend - individualism. In this respect belonging to a group of friends is a different story"

In Russia, your individuality comes first and friends follow. In England you often find your group of friends first and mutually decide on a direction for the group. Although groups exist in Russia and England, in Russia the group formed by the people in it but in England the people are formed by the group.

Russia No.1

There is a Russian saying: "Better is the enemy of good"

This suggests a respect for stability in Russian mentality. It is similar to the English "Don't fix what ain't broke" but in the Engish expression we are talking about leaving something as it is rather than messing around with it, whereas the Russian expression is saying that we shouldn't even progress to develop a better alternative.

It has a feeling of protection for what has been invented before and clinging on to the recent past, which is part of the present. What is 'good' is what exists in our lives and what is 'better' is the future approaching to eradicate what we have. There is a fear of the future and a trick of creating the 'other' out of it as if there is some sinister external influence in control of it. If we are now, we are 'good', so who is the figure promising 'better' on the horizon and threatening everything that is now?

Russians have a tendency to look backwards fondly and fear the future. Today nostalgia for the past is evident in mass media. There have been several films about Soviet age brought in to a modern light, drawing parallels between then and now. 'Lost Empire' and 'Silyagi' for example. But more about that later....

NOTE: This is the first in a series of posts which are going to be insights and observations about Russia and its people through an examination of language, behaviour, trends, media, cultural phenomena and of course, personal experience. It is only one person's view or Russia. Of course, please feel free to agree, or disagree with anything that I write.

An Italian footballer made of chocolate sauce? I would definitely buy that...

It was a special edition package for Euro 2008.

Ice Skating, Gorky Park

Yoga in Moscow

This is the entrance to my wonderful yoga centre in Moscow. I love this place because its shabby and rough exterior give it a certain authentic rustic feel. It helps in yoga as it takes away all associations with yummy mummies spending their quite hours between dropping children off and collecting them from variuos child care places meditating with their good looking yoga teacher. In our yoga room there are punching bags, cracked basement windows and bars across the ceiling where our good looking yoga teacher does one-armed pulls ups whilst we're holding various poses. I think it's to test our concentration.




This is the hall where we usually have to wait for the previous class to finish. Russians don't do things by halves and most classes last over 2 hours long. I have been in classes that last over 3 hours and finishing after midnight. Sure enough the next day I dozily hobbled around the office. The sleep was so deep after that, that it took me a few days to wake up again. The good thing is that you really get your money's worth and the teachers guage the level of experience of the class and the energy levels so each class is slightly different. I rarely feel underworked or disspointed.



In most places in Russia there is a little woman who looks very similar to this with somme perfunctory role which usually involves exchanging tokens for money, money for tokens, tokens for other tokends and yelling at people that don't understand the token system. She treats you like one of her own and reminds me of one of the matrons at my boarding school. They also never have any change. This particular one managed to leave mid yoga class last week, locking the teacher's belongings in the office and locking all of us in the basement as she left, locking the door behind her. Luckily its not only women that do yoga and we had one gallant man who found a spade to lever open the door. She does ensure though that you pay them the modest amount of 7 pounds a class, or marks off your monthly card if you are a dedicated and regular yogi.



Their website has timetables, prices and directions for all 4 locations around Moscow and also details for St.Petersburg. There are pictures of all the teachers on there too. The site is also in English and they have some English speaking teachers. This is their website here

Leap and sing in all I do

I think that anyone that used to sing this song at school should sing it again once in a while. There's even an accompaniment to get you singing nice and loudly.

This is my favourite verse:

Give me courage when the world is rough,
keep me loving though the world is tough;
leap and sing in all I do,
keep me traveling along with you

Click here for full lyrics and piano accompaniment

My apology

Agathon: But all that talk about death being the same as sleep

Allen (as Socrates): Yes but the difference is that wehn you're dead and somebody tells, "Everybody up, it's morning," it's very hard to find your slippers.

Woody Allen, Side Effects

Dosh Dosh

This is a great blog for Online Marketing and Social Media:

http://www.doshdosh.com/

I went to see a Chekhov play Three Sisters this week and was very suprised by what I saw. It was a very dark comedy with very modern sense of humour. For example one character makes a dramatic exit after a speech only to return to the room and say quietly 'wrong door', before shuffling out of another exit. Did the writers of Frasier learn from Chekhov?

I like Kulygin who, despite his unenviable situation as a husband of an unfaithful wife who does not love him, walks around muttering to himself, 'I'm happy, I'm satisfied', like a pitiful personal mantra. I like the relationship between Andrey, the intellectual brother forced to a meaningless life as a mediocre civil servant, and the senile homeless post man. They share a friendship despite not understanding each other and Andrey's irritation with the old man. However it has the feeling of the relationship between a son who has all the culture of the city and a loving father who has never lived in the city and doesn't understand his son but agrees and supports him.

I am interested by this blog: http://www.miller-mccune.com/article/cracking-the-case-of-chekhov%E2%80%99s-ambiguity

It talks about the challenges of translating Chekhov and suggests modernizing the text or putting it in contemporary setting to help interpretation. When I saw Three Sisters I was struck by its timelessness. The play is about the murkiness and hopelessness of existence, powerless against the passing of time and greater forces of history. It questions our ability to resist our fate and protect our values against external influences. The family are intellectuals living at beginning of the twentieth century and the approaching Utalitarianism is encroaching on their freedom and space, forcing them in to a tiny corner of the house where they are physcially and metaphysically suffocated.

The problem in translation is because it is so essentially Russian in its delivery. Having seen the play in Russian I was lent an English version and started reading but found I could not bare it. The problem is not in translating the words but translating the Russian speech. Russians speak in strong tones, throwing their sentences around with melodramatic sentiment. The characters are pleading, whining, longing, overjoyous, hysterical, making declarations, being ironic and all this is evident in everyday speech patterns in Russian.

Chekhov's plays use everyday conversation to show how the greater forces of time, society and history nudge us towards our fate whilst we are going about our everyday lives. However because of the unfamiliarity with this way of conversing, our attention in the translation is pricked rather than put to rest as the Russians are lulled in to a false sense of security with this seemingly light hearted play with tragic undertones.

One way to produce the play for a foreign audience would be to set the scene first, imparting a little information about Chekhov and Russia at that time asking the audience to have a little sympathy with the Russian characters and their melodrama. Although I believe that texts are always interpreted by the audience and therefore it can be dangerous to dictate interpretation, I think in this case it needs a little push in the right direction as Chekhov was very concerned about untruths and misunderstanding of his plays. I could argue that this play is not stuck in time, but stuck in its culture and therefore language.

What I like about Chekhov is how through his gloomy pessimism shines a celebration of human life. Although he offers no answers to the questions that the characters search through to find the meaning of our existence and the future of humanity, the play is filled with the light and darkness of real life which carries on humbly. I got the feeling that Chekhov truly cared about his characters. They are pitiful in their inability to change their lot but children of the time and they stare out from the stage in their cage, trapped in the empty space between their old lives and a new era.

Next I am going to see Cherry Orchard which is mean to be his funniest play.

It is sooooo true

Here is an extract from an email I was sent in work (in Moscow) titled "It is soooooo true". Apparently it was written by a foreigner who has an equal opinion of Russians and Americans. I have a feeling that is not the case...

American kids: Move out when they're 18 with the full support of their parents.
Russian kids: Move out when they're 28, having saved enough money for a house, and are two weeks away from getting married.....
unless there's room in the basement for the newlyweds.

American kids: Their dads always call before they come over to visit them, and it's usually only on special occasions.
Russian kids: Are not at all fazed when their dads show up, unannounced, on a Saturday morning at 8:00, and starts pruning the fruit trees.
If there are no fruit trees, he'll plant some.

American kids: Have never seen you cry.
Russian kids: Cry with you.

American kids: Will eat at your dinner table and leave.
Russian kids: Will spend hours there, talking, laughing, and just being together.

American kids: Know few things about you.
Russian kids: Could write a book with direct quotes from you.

American kids: Are for a while.
Russian kids: Are for life.

American kids: Think that being Russian is cool.
Russian kids: Know that being Russian is cool.

American kids: Will ignore this.
Russian kids: Will forward it.