Today's blog is about exciting new things.
First of all, the latest single from one of my favorite bands The Go! Team

They are playing at the end of October in both Brooklyn and Manhattan. Egads, I must go.

Next, the Espresso Paperback Machine, the first on-demand commercial book printer in the world. For a plodding video of this new machine, please copy this address into your browser:
http://www.ondemandbooks.com/perfectbook.mov

Third, the TurboBroiler:
This machine somehow cooks meat very evenly and very quickly. My roommate, who owns it, does not know how it works, but she says that every Filipino family owns one. I swear, it cooks a great burger in 5-7 minutes.

Finally, on the life front, things are moving ahead really well. John David has an interview sometime next week. I have a second interview for an exciting job tomorrow morning. I hope everything works out. Monday is the hardest day when looking for a job. Everyone else is out and about, working and contributing to society, while you wait for someone in a mysterious office to make a move, give you a call, email you, whatever.

Hopefully this will be my last jobless Monday.

Big gasp of relief here in New York. After several weeks of painful heat, things are beginning to cool down. Yesterday it drizzled all day and all night. This proved annoying while I rushed around the city for an interview and phone interview. My big, borrowed umbrella was caught in a tug of war between me and the wind. I made it through the day without a scratch or splash, however, and spent the evening at Jess's house in New Jersey. A nice day. A nice night. Aaaaaaaaannnnnnnddddddd . . . a very nice morning:
Ignore the window screen and focus on several facts. First, my window is open, and the cool air is floating through my apartment. It is almost like spring. Next, see the sky, how it shines, cloudless. Very pretty outside, and though this neighborhood is wearing a little thin on me, I'm definitely going to take a walk as soon as I change (I know, I know, it is already 3:30, but I've been taking it easy).

It has been a long week, and though I haven't found a job yet (perhaps that is next week's goal), I've had a good time. I've stayed in contact with friends, discovered a cheap dumpling place, and visited New Jersey for the first time in my life. I spent an afternoon in Hoboken, NJ, in fact, which is surprisingly small (about one or two square miles) and holds the honor of being Frank Sinatra's birthplace.

I'm going to start a weekly feature where I explore a specific monument of New York. Soon to come is the Brooklyn Bridge. I need more time to get this together, so please be patient.

The job search is taxing. I am often tired and worried about the coming weeks. I know all the pieces will fall into place, but I am just at a moment when these pieces haven't all arrived, or they are obscured. So now I'm waiting and hoping that when they do come or come within grasp, I will know what to do. I just have to be strong, honest, and ready to make something good out of what opportunities arise.

I hope all is well with you.

In one of my classes I read selections from Dorothy Wordsworth's Grasmere Journals. I remember being both bored and amazed by her lifestyle: gardening, letter writing, poem transcribing, letter writing, walking, eating, letter writing. That's about it. What a strange daily life. There was such a sturdy difference between that world and mine, I thought.

Today I feel differently. I have no job. It is raining. The cable is broken. Today I woke up, put on a clean shirt, read, stared off, checked my email, read, made a phone call, read, stared off, checked my email, and now I'm blogging. I think I might take a walk later, perhaps after reading, staring off, and checking my email. It isn't even noon yet, and I am not even Dorothy Wordsworth. I don't have a garden. That may be the problem.

Or perhaps this morning just seems slow because yesterday was so fun. I went to a free concert day in Brooklyn. During the summer they hold these "beach party" festivals in a gigantic abandoned pool.

I got there very early (2PM) and waited in a very long line for a very long time. Inside the promoters had set up a waterslide, a water volleyball net, and a dodgeball court. Stands along the perimeter sold overpriced hotdogs, hamburgers, beer, and water. The opening band really didn't catch my eye or my ear, but the second act I'm from Barcelona was really fun. It reminded me of the fun Athens collective bands I am now missing. They even threw beach balls into the audience:

When I figured out how to use zoom, I could actually get a shot of the band. Here is my favorite out of the group:

I was lucky enough to run into some CPC kids there and finally had some company among the huge crowd. After a long break, Blonde Redhead finally came on stage and really gave a good show. I haven't bought the new album yet, but I think it will be my next CD purchase. This was a good idea to go. I had been trapped in my apartment living my Dorothy Wordsworth life for two days before Sunday, and I was ready to get out.

One final note:
I'm sure everyone is relieved to hear that the hipster clap is still well and alive in Brooklyn, along with skull-fitting, angular haircuts and $100 shirts that look like they came out of the dumpster. Great people watching, though. All the cool kids from Brooklyn and Manhattan seemed to be there, and as the beginning snare and whistle of Peter, Bjorn, and John's "Young Folks" spread from the concert PAs, I could hear faint, fanboy screams reverberate across the peeling pool floor:

Yesterday, today, and tomorrow I am taking a short break from job searching and job worrying. Good thing, too, because this week has been a maelstrom of online applications, interviews, temp agencies, and resumes. For example:

See here Miles in his natural habitat, pawing gracelessly at the computer screen. Give me a job. *scratch scratch*

This weekend has been nice. Friday I read in bed and made a visit to my friend's birthday party in Astoria. Today I also read in bed, finishing off Chabon's new book and starting another. Don't think I've grown soft, though. I also took a long walk around the neighborhood, snapped some pictures, ate at a Greek diner, and picked up dry cleaning. Here are the fruits of today's labor:

This is the diner I live above. In the morning, the stairs are swamped with a cloud of grease, hot diner air, and flies. Luckily, they close around 4. I have yet to eat here; I already spend too much time eating junk food in this building.

So easily I pass into another neighborhood, one with a completely different feeling and with completely different people.

A Saturday market in front of the Brooklyn triumph.

One of the large lawns of Prospect Park. I have yet to spend much time here. It doesn't quite have the same blissful atmosphere of Central Park, but perhaps I will change my mind over time.

Alright, enough quickly-shot photos. Tomorrow I am going to a free Blonde Redhead concert in Brooklyn. I am looking forward to being outside of the apartment for more than a couple hours.

Things seems to be moving so slowly in my little world. Perhaps this is my desire to speed through these next few weeks and to suddenly find myself with a job, a furnished room, and a John David.

After the first full night of sleep all week, I woke up this morning and went to the career fair at Columbia. Lots of booths, books, and resumes. Though only a few companies really had what I am looking for, I feel good about the contacts I made. I'm excited to work in a cool office and join a team.

Funny story:
As I was walking down the street from Columbia in pursuit of a bagel, a woman along the sidewalk asked me, "Is that a University of Georgia bag?" It turns out this woman went to UGA many years ago. Even more, she moved to New York to work in publishing and for many years worked for Scholastic. We talked very briefly about what I was doing in New York, about Columbia, about the job search. Then she said she would pass my name along, and I gave her my resume. Very strange; I hope I wasn't too forward.

Funny how connections happen out of the blue.

Alright, I don't have much more to say. Another early morning tomorrow (up by 7AM three days in a row--unheard of), an interview/meeting, and a formal reception. I have set things in motion, and now there's a moment of anxious hope that everything lines up right.

It is a rainy day in Brooklyn, and I am sitting in my room wondering anxiously what I should be doing. I finished my program at Columbia on Friday. We had a final banquet and received one of these suckers:

Hooray-ya-yay
The last 48 hours have pretty difficult. I had to be out of the Columbia dorms by 10AM on Saturday, but I didn't end up packing until a few hours before that deadline. Foolish perhaps, but I cleaned up, sorted everything, and was out just in time. I shared a cab with a friend and headed to Brooklyn. I dropped off my things, took a shower, and began walking toward the mall in order to get an air mattress. The Atlantic Center mall is located five blocks from my house. I didn't realize this until yesterday, and I am so thankful for the convenience. Other residents of Brooklyn, however, are not so thankful. It is another recent development that people think are marring the city's character. In fact, I am living right next to one of Brooklyn's most ambitious building projects in history, the Brooklyn Arena and Gehry complex:
I live on Vanderbilt and Dean, directly on the lower right corner of the map. Most of Brooklyn's buildings are about 4 stories, with a few going up to no more than 10 stories. Imagine, then, this in the middle of the Brooklyn Brownstones:




We shall see how that works out.

Anyway, got my mattress, carried it home, and then took the subway back to Manhattan to see Rachael and Shannon:

I realize that these photos are sideways, but I'm not motivated enough to alter them in photoshop, so just tilt your head. We hung out in Union Square Park, walked through a farmers market, and ended up in Madison Square Park. After lying on the grass and talking, we took the subway to Brooklyn, visited my apartment, and ate a great meal at a local cafe.
After Shannon left, Rachael and I bought some ice cream and watched tv. We soon realized that my apartment is extremely hot. My roommate has a small cooler in her room to battle the heat. Smart, very smart.

I slept with a spray bottle and periodically sprayed myself while we listened to the Saturday night racket outside my windows. It was awful. The first thing Rachael and I did in the morning was walk to the mall and purchase an air conditioner:
You see it here nestled in my window hard at work. A very long ordeal, however, was involved to get it to this place. I didn't realize how hard it is to carry a full window-sized air conditioner. Very heavy to lug five blocks. Then it started to pour outside. This was a low moment. After several anxious moments of lugging an air conditioner along the street while cabs sped past, we finally hailed a cab and got home. Tough day.

Things are getting better, though. My room is wonderfully cool. Rachael and I had a nice meal before we parted. I bought groceries and talked to my parents and John David. I took a nice nap and a hot shower. Now I am thinking of tomorrow: a cool interview, fresh laundered clothes, and a clean room. I'm looking forward to it.

Hey Everyone,

This blog has been a void for quite awhile. I haven't had the time to fully process everything that has happened in the last few weeks. Perhaps after some time I will begin to formulate some anecdotes for y'all.

We have just finished the magazine portion of the course, which was a refreshing change from books but nonetheless stressful. I was the art director in the men's magazine group. We created JACK, a hip road trip magazine that melded the content of a travel magazine with the attitude of a men's magazine. I had to create a logo, two covers, a feature spread, and a table of contents. Click the links below to download my work.

http://philos.myweb.uga.edu/featurespread.pdf
http://philos.myweb.uga.edu/NEW%20COVER%20SAMPLE%20-%20DESERT.pdf
http://philos.myweb.uga.edu/NEW%20SAMPLE%20-%20CRUDE.pdf
http://philos.myweb.uga.edu/TABLE%20OF%20CONTENTS.pdf

On my computer, you can see the frame lines in the pdfs. Let's ignore those, shall we?

I found a sublet for August in Prospect Heights in Brooklyn. hooray.
I haven't found a job yet. sad.

I've been reading an oral history of New York covering the years between 1890 to WWII. The book is divided into chapters that each focus on a distinct neighborhood. I finished the Lower East Side the other day. Pretty intense place in its day. Gang wars. Murders. Rampant thieving. Egg creams. All very interesting except for the extended section on pickles, herring, and potatoes, which seems to have been the primary diet of most people. Right now I'm reading about the Upper East Side, which was, in contrast with the LES, one of the most wealthy areas. Carriages. Balls. Registries. Calling cards. All very surreal.

New York has this strange place in American culture. There is this pressure to not be a tourist, to be a New Yorker, and real New Yorkers are so proud of their connection to this city. And yet, most families who immigrated to the US up until WWII probably lived in New York. I just found out that my great great grandfather and his family owned a rare book store in Bryant Park. New York was the passage through which people entered a completely new world, and this has really made New York the cultural center it is. Everyone can point back to it somehow. I suppose this is fairly obvious, but I am just now understanding what that really means.

Well, I'm off now. More posts to come, I promise.