I Think Someone Was Lying To William Whyte

Since I haven't had a chance to check out Edward Glaeser's Triumph of the City yet, I've been satisfying my urge for urbanist reading with William H. Whyte's City: Rediscovering the Center. This book basically takes the opposite perspective on how cities work: whereas Glaeser looks at the macroeconomic situation of cities in general, Whyte has gone out and filmed countless hours of how people in cities do the simplest things like converse on a sidewalk. Being a bike messenger, I am often in a position to see these things as well, so I find it all rather fascinating, yet familiar. For example, people apparently are more likely to stop have a conversation in the busiest part of the walkway, rather than off to the side. It always seemed that way to me, but I figured that was just when I noticed it the most.

I had to laugh at this passage from page 62, though. Keep in mind that this was written in 1988:

“A new danger for pedestrians is the rise of the messenger cyclists. Up until about five years ago most of the cyclists one encountered were people on their way to work. The messenger cyclists, however, are animated by money. They get paid for the number of deliveries they can make in a day, and true speed will net them an additional $100 additional a day, for a total take of $250–$300. So they go fast, very fast—thirty to thirty-five miles per hour when possible; they go against traffic and they run red lights. They seem to hate pedestrians; they scowl and curse at them and yell and blow whistles at them to get them out of the way.”

Really? $250–$300 a day, in 1988? $150, if you don't go fast? Thirty-five miles per hour? Sounds to me like he's listening to people telling stories. Sure, such things are possible, but certainly not on anything approaching a regular basis.

Other than that, though, it's a great book. It's amazing how much getting the little details right or wrong can make a difference in how things work. It's especially poignant for me, because I see so many things all the time that are just done the wrong way. Just little things like a building directory organized by floor number, so you can only find what you're looking for if you already know what floor it's on (77 Franklin St. is a particularly egregious example). It's nice to see someone try to shine light on these sorts of issues. Not that they've gone away in the 22 years since the book came out.

I Think I Mentioned That Edward Glaeser Was Everywhere These Days

And here he is on the Daily Show:

The Daily Show
Tags: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

Not long after his Atlantic article “How Skyscrapers Can Save The City.” I'm not sure I'm comfortable with the idea of as many buildings as tall as he's advocating, but it would be nice to move further in that direction.

And an interview with Grist a couple weeks ago, where he fesses up to actually living in the suburbs himself. Kids, private school tuition, the usual excuses. And another interview, this time with the Atlantic.

I'll definitely be trying to get my hands on a copy of his new book from the library ASAP (having no money sucks). I keep checking online, but there's never a copy available. Guess I'll just have to keep following the promotional appearances.

Sal Mineo, Murdered 35 Years Ago Today

Such a tragic life, a poor kid in the Bronx who couldn't stay out of trouble, a quick rise to fame, then a has-been in his mid-twenties, broke and trying to get back into the game, and pointlessly murdered at 37. It was his question, in Rebel Without a Cause, asking James Dean if the world would end in the nighttime or daytime, that inspired the title of this blog (the exact wording was from The Smiths' “Stretch Out And Wait”, Morrissey being a James Dean fan, naturally). Really one of the most amazing performances I've ever seen on film, at the young age of 16. He could have been one of the greats, but things just wouldn't work out that way. Also, not at all bad looking:

The Scourge of Pointless, Knee-Jerk Contrarianism

OK, so a while ago I promised an update on where the fight for marriage equality might suffer setbacks this year. Then I kept waiting to get a handle on what's going on in Wyoming, where they looked to be working towards any combination of: a law banning recognition of out-of-state marriages, a version that would also ban recognition of civil unions, a constitutional amendment doing either, or a law providing for civil unions. It was confusing. I'll try to sort it out at some point.

The other places to watch out for are New Hampshire, where the Republicans have a veto-proof majority now, the District of Columbia, where Republicans in Congress might be able to undo what the DC City Council has done, and Iowa, where same-sex marriage is legal, but still rather unpopular. New Hampshire and DC don't seem to be getting much enthusiasm from opponents, but in Iowa, there is a real push to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot to ban same-sex marriage. Luckily, this isn't easy to do, and the Democrats hold the state Senate, where the majority leader, Michael Gronstal, has vowed not to bring the issue to a vote. The Iowa House of Representatives is still trying to do something, though.

So, they held hearings on the matter, the only real effect of which was to give a 19 year old Iowan named Zach Wahls a platform for his eloquent speech about being raised by a lesbian couple, the video of which has become a Youtube hit (1.5 million views right now):
This seems to have gotten a very positive response from the various news sites and blogs that I pay attention too. Yeah, I'm sure there's all sorts of stuff out on the “family values” crowd's websites, but that's not anything I give a shit about. Those who disagree with marriage equality, but have much more important concerns aren't going to chime up to talk shit about Zach Wahls. That'd be stupid.

But then again, there always seems to be that one guy who just has to disagree to prove how above-it-all he is. In this case, University of Rochester economist Steven Landsburg decided to fill the role:

“In a video that’s begun to go viral, University of Iowa engineering student Zach Wahls attempts to refute this notion without offering a shred of evidence beyond a single cherry-picked case (his own) to prove that children of gay parents sometimes turn out just fine… What’s particularly disturbing to me is all the chatter about how eloquent this kid is, as if eloquence in the service of intellectual misdirection were somehow something to be admired.”

Not being a reader of Prof. Landsburg's, I only found out about this from Will Wilkinson at the Economist's “Democracy in America” blog, where he neatly eviscerated Prof. Landsburg's argument. I highly recommend Will Wilkinson (the Economist only identifies its bloggers by initials, but it's not too hard to figure out from other places who W.W. is); he's enough of a libertarian to frustrate me at times, and enough of a liberal to get tossed out of the Cato Institute, which seems to be politically where my blog is focusing its commentary. Expect to see me quote him from time to time.

At the end, he sums up a frustration of mine:

“So what gives? My guess is that, like a number of right-leaning economists, Mr Landsburg has a regrettable tendency toward tone-deaf, context-dropping, contrarian provocation based on an unexamined assumption that this is what it means to be bravely rational. It is not. In any case, I think we can all agree that, other things equal, intellectual misdirection is not ‘something to be admired’.”

This does seem to be something of an annoying strain that I've noticed especially in otherwise top-notch right-of-center economics writing. The guys behind Freakonomics, Levitt and Dubner, seem to have made their whole career off of examples of “counterintuitive” economic phenomena, even when it requires being sloppy to get there. I think there's definitely something to conservative or libertarian criticisms of the side-effects of government policy, but one can go too far in that line of thinking as well. Kudos to Will Wilkinson for calling that sort of thing out.

As for the rest of us, I suppose we can just enjoy seeing Zach Wahls speak passionately about his experiences without trying to judge him on whether his speech was a complete logical refutation of all arguments that same-sex parents are inferior. Certainly, the data exist to refute those arguments as well, and I'm sure various legislatures weighing the issue have considered expert testimony on the matter. But those videos aren't going to have the same appeal as this one.

Reason Magazine Cheers On Jerry Brown

“There can be no doubt that a good many, at least, of the problems with which the modern town planner is concerned are genuine problems with which governments or local authorities are bound to concern themselves. Unless we can provide some guidance in fields like this about what are legitimate or necessary government activities and what are its limits, we must not complain if our views are not taken seriously when we oppose other kinds of less justified ‘planning.’”

–F. A. Hayek

Apparently, I seem to like posting stuff with a basic theme of libertarian critiques of urban planning issues. I'm decidedly more of a liberal than a libertarian, myself, but I think that the history of failed “urban renewal” schemes in the US provides many lessons about the limits of central planning to solve the problems of large cities. And any focus on the issues affecting our great metropolises coming from a libertarian direction is a pleasant surprise to hear. So often, it seems that libertarian ideas are created around some ideal world where people live in freedom and self-sufficiency by themselves with their guns and SUVs. The article by Tim Lee that I grabbed the Hayek quote above from offers a more cogent critique of modern libertarianism along those lines. But that's not what I want to focus on here.

This article on Reason.com, cheering on California governor Jerry Brown in his quest to take on the state's bloated redevelopment agencies is the sort of thing I like to see. I don't know much about California, but I've been known to try to keep up on what the Boston Redevelopment Authority does. And much of it is the sort of necessary upgrades to the city's infrastructure that are always going to happen. (Also, their Boston Atlas is amazing if you love maps as much as I do, and the receptionist is always nice when I deliver stuff there.) But I've never liked the basic setup of the city basically putting its planning and development functions in the hands of a semi-autonomous, barely accountable agency. The whole way it's structured seems to invite collusion between the Authority and large developers, and hooking up those with the right connections with sweetheart deals on whatever property the city can grab via eminent domain (all given Supreme Court blessing in Kelo v. City of New London).

So I can heartily join in with Reason in hoping Jerry Brown is successful in taking on the redevelopment agencies. And, in the broader scheme of things, I hope that perhaps there's a way to find some common ground between liberals and libertarians interested in urban issues to dislodge the entrenched interests from the positions of power they command within our institutions of civic governance.

What's in Store for Marriage Equality in 2011, Part 1

As I'm sure everyone noticed, the 2010 elections were a massive disaster for the Democratic Party, and something of a victory for the far-right wing of the Republican Party. With the Republicans in the majority in the House of Representatives, there's very little chance for any movement on even the most incremental advances in gay rights before the 2012 elections. At the state level, however, the picture actually looks surprisingly good for supporters of marriage equality. While the elections went badly in general for the more supportive candidates, there were a few important victories that should make a real difference over the coming year or two.

The map above shows where we stand right now as far as marriage laws go. The dark blue states already have full equality, lighter blues are for civil unions and domestic partnerships. Reds are for same-sex marriage prohibitions. Some states have banned marriage yet allow for lesser options. Let's see if we can get an idea of what the map will look like a year from now.

Probably the most positive news is that Rhode Island is very likely to pass a marriage equality bill this year. Former Governor Donald Carcieri, an opponent of gay rights, has been replaced by the Independent (former Republican) Lincoln Chafee. Chafee called on the state legislature to pass a marriage equality bill in his inaugural address this year, and it seems to be likely to pass. While not a sure predictor of support for gay rights, the Democrats have a 65–10 majority in the House and a 29–8 (and 1 Independent) majority in the Senate, which ought to be a decent sized cushion against the possibility of anti-equality Democrats.

The next likeliest state to move forward on marriage equality is Maryland. Already, the state recognizes out-of-state marriages, as well as providing for domestic partnerships itself. It isn't certain whether the votes exist for full equality, although it seems likely, with a supermajority of Democrats in both houses of the legislature. The two seats the Democrats picked up in the Senate are thought to seal the deal. If the votes aren't there, the Republican Minority Leader has also proposed a civil unions bill (which doesn't have the support of his caucus, and he stepped down as Minority Leader afterwards), so at least one of the two is very likely to pass. Governor Martin O'Malley, a Democrat, is a supporter of marriage equality and would sign a bill if it were to pass the legislature.

New York is an interesting and complicated case, as the Republicans have regained control of the state Senate, but at the same time the situation for marriage equality has likely improved somewhat. Back in 2009, the Senate rejected a bill to allow same-sex marriage in New York, by a vote of 38–24. At the time, the Democrats held a small majority of seats, but 8 Democrats joined all Republicans in opposing the bill. After the 2010 elections, the Republicans hold a small majority, but, by my count, supporters have gained two votes. Andrew Cuomo has replaced David Patterson as governor, and while both are strong supporters of marriage equality, Cuomo enjoys high favorability ratings and would be much more effective champion of a bill. New York state politics is weird (and mostly not in a good way), but I think I've got a decent grasp of the situation, and will try to write it up in its own post where I can cover the details a bit better.

On the civil unions front, Hawaii seems in as good a situation legislatively now as it did last year when the legislature passed a civil unions bill. This time around, however, the governor is Neil Abercrombie, a Democrat, who has promised to sign such a bill, rather than Laura Lingle, a Republican, who vetoed it last time. As far as I know there aren't any plans to try for full marriage equality.

Even ahead of Hawaii is Illinois. Acting Governor Pat Quinn, who took over after Rod Blagojevich was impeached, narrowly won reelection in November. He will sign a sign a bill providing for civil unions in a ceremony in Chicago on January 31st. Quinn is a supporter of full equality, but a bill to that effect has never made it out of committee. The Democrats have majorities of 64–54 in the House of Representatives and 35–24 in the Senate currently, although it's entirely unclear (to me, at least) where they stand on marriage equality.

That's all I can really think of for good news that's likely to happen this year from state legislatures. Given the Republican gains in the last election, and especially given the gains made by far-right extremists in this country, I think it's impressive that we can still gain ground on this issue this year. Seriously, the Republican Party of 2010 had re-criminalization of sodomy as part of its platform in at least Texas and Montana, and lost all three openly gay state legislators out of the 4,000 it has countrywide, the first time in years it's been down to zero. Yet progress manages to push on despite them. I'll get to where our current gains may be in danger in Part 2, and maybe get a Part 3 where I can discuss what's currently working through the court system, and what we might see this year.

Richard Daley, Sun King Mayor of Chicago

Looks like I've got a streak of posts on urban issues going here. I do have other interests that I intend to get to as well. In any event, this article on the Urbanophile blog was rather fascinating to me:

It's a look at how the power to get things done in Chicago is concentrated in a ‘nexus’ of entrenched interests, and the ramifications that this has for the city. Often referred to as the ‘Chicago Way,’ the city has established itself during the administration Mayor Daley (the son, Richard M. Daley, who has been mayor since 1989, not his father Richard J. Daley, mayor from 1955–1976) as a city that Gets Things Done. On the other hand, its economic growth has been stagnant for years, even as the city's prestige has increased.

Much of the article describes the totality with which the Chicago Way permeates every aspect of doing business of any sort in the city: “I believe the Nexus resulted from the culture of clout combined with the fact that, with the exception of the interregnum between Daley pere and fils, power has been centralized on the 5th floor of city hall for decades. The Nexus may have come into being around the mayor, but now it has become a feature of civic life, one that practically longs for what Greg Hinz has labeled a ‘Big Daddy’ style leader to sustain the system.”

This stands in contrast to many of the problems New York City has had over its history, which often involved a mayor unable to deal with with competing entrenched interests. For many years, for example, Robert Moses built his own empire of sorts through controlling various city and state agencies, accumulating more power than most of the mayors he theoretically served under. (Robert Caro's book The Power Broker is a highly recommended read on all of this.) It would be a fascinating study to see how power is accumulated and used differently in different major cities.

The one quote in the Urbanophile article that struck me was in this comparison: “The ultimate dream of the clout seeker is a centralized unitary state like Louis XIV’s France. In Chicago, we’ve come amazingly close to achieving it. It’s not that there’s no conflict, but it is all of the palace intrigue variety, not true conflicts between rival power centers.” In a way, I think Louis XIV is the right example here. While much is made of the opulence of Versailles and the excesses of the nobility, what gets rather less attention is the fact that Louis XIV managed to set everything up that way to consolidate his own power.

I'm far from an expert on France during the 72 year reign of the Sun King, but it was a similar story of putting himself in the center, and slowly working to keep all conflict between others for his approval. The French nobility were kept in perpetual competition with each other, spending vast sums just to maintain the lifestyle expected of them at the palace. And Versailles itself was designed to literally put Louis at the center, with the nobility arranged outward from him, vying against each other for the attention of the king. Mayor Daley might not have that sort of absolute power, but it does seem the model.

And like modern day Chicago, France in the early 18th Century, has been able to accomplish things that would have been impossible without the ability of its leader to keep everyone in line. On the other hand, France's great rival at the time, Great Britain, where during the long reign of Louis XIV, one king was beheaded and another fled the country, was able to innovate much better, despite a much smaller supply of people and natural resources. So, whoever wins the upcoming election, now that Daley's retiring, has his or her work cut out. I'm ever the optimist about such things.

And, in case you're wondering, I'm not going to say anything right now about our own mayor-for-life situation here in Boston.

Trailer for Upcoming Documentary on Pruitt-Igoe Housing Project

The Pruitt-Igoe was a notorious housing project built in the mid-50s in St. Louis that came to represent everything wrong with mid-20 Century urban renewal, and even everything wrong with the modern architecture of the time. It was demolished by the federal government in the mid-70s (the demolition is featured in the movie Koyaanisqatsi). In any event, this documentary looks really interesting. I'm not sure what the "myth" they're referring to is, though. Probably the tendency among some critics to blame Pruitt-Igoe's problems solely on the architecture of the place, if I had to guess. That part does get overstated a lot.

Trailer – The Pruitt-Igoe Myth: an Urban History from the Pruitt-Igoe Myth on Vimeo.

Amazing Fact of the Day

All those bike lanes they've added all over the place in New York City (and if you aren't familiar, they've popped up everywhere)? Apparently, the total cost has been only $8.8 million, of which the city itself only paid for about $2 million. (via Streetsblog):

“One question about the cost of building bike lanes yielded an answer that will be of particular interest to Streetsblog readers. All of the current DOT’s bike projects combined have cost a total of $8.8 million, including analysis, design, outreach, and construction, Sadik-Khan said. When you factor in the 80 percent federal match, the city has spent less than $2 million from its own coffers on the major expansions to the bike network we’ve seen the last few years."

Our Cities Are The Engines That Will Propel Recovery

Harvard economics professor and author Edward Glaeser had an article in the Boston Globe last week about the economic importance of cities. This has long been a topic that's interested me. Last year, I finally got around to reading Jane Jacobs' Cities and the Wealth of Nations, which makes similar arguments to Glaeser's article. The main thrust of the book is that cities are the places where new ideas are made, and where the sustained economic growth of a nation occurs. It suffers for Jacobs never having been a trained economist, and generally seems overly pessimistic to me. Still, a worthwhile read for the ideas it brings up.

Glaeser brings these ideas to bear on our current situation:

“DURING ECONOMIC downturns, we begin to fear that we are entering a permanent period of decline. But we can avoid that depressing prospect if we recognize that a revival will not come from federal spending or another building boom. Reinvention requires a new wave of innovation and entrepreneurship, which can emerge from our dense metropolitan areas and their skilled residents. America must stop treating its cities as ugly stepchildren, and should instead cherish them as the engines that power our economy.

America’s 12 largest metropolitan areas collectively produced 37 percent of the country’s output in 2008, the last year with available data. Per capita productivity was particularly high in large, skilled areas such as Boston, where output per person was 39 percent higher than the nation’s metropolitan average. New York and San Francisco enjoy similar per capita productivity advantages. Boston also seems to be moving past the current recession, with an unemployment rate well below the national average of 9.8 percent.”

Interestingly, though, these cities where productivity per capita is highest are losing people relative to the Sunbelt area, where per capita productivity is much lower. In a post on the New York Times' Economix blog, Edward Glaeser (who apparently likes to spread his ideas around*) blames this on housing regulations. I'm not sure I'd single it out as the primary cause, but it would be nice to see cities like Boston take a more laissez-faire attitude toward building and zoning regulations. Which was the primary lesson I took from Jane Jacobs' masterwork, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, whereas the "New Urbanist" movement seems to have decided to ignore the process and create regulations to achieve a result that looks the same. But that's a rant for another day.

*Actually, I'm guessing it's because he's got a book, The Triumph of the City, coming out.

Things I Didn't Realize Existed: A Tory Anarchist

Over at The League of Ordinary Gentlemen, whose bloggers seem to be all be libertarians of some sort or another, E.D. Kain has a fascinating interview with Daniel McCarthy, who has a blog at The American Conservative magazine's webpage called Tory Anarchist. He tries to explain what this label means in terms of what it's not:

“It’s very contradictory, but they’re two dispositions that aren’t liberalism…

Tory anarchism isn’t really an idea at all, just a intuition, but it’s meant to hint that tradition and authority are different from state power, and being right-wing doesn’t have to mean — and shouldn’t mean — being pious and meddlesome. It’s liberalism that’s damn near synonymous with the worst kind of piety and meddling.

Now, certainly, this is not exactly a philosophy that particularly appeals to me, but the whole discussion is very interesting. There's a bit of discussion of Edmund Burke, often described as the father of conservatism. I've been meaning to get around to reading up on Burke's ideas. I've got a late nineteenth century copy of Letter to a Noble Lord lying around here somewhere. In the interview, Kain and McCarthy mostly discuss Vindication, though, which I am thoroughly unfamiliar with.

They gloss over a number of different political philosophers in the discussion, which does get a good bit beyond my understanding of such things. I can't really even figure out whether they're praising or criticizing Murray Rothbard, who I understand to be an anarcho-capitalist. So I can't quite make out what differences there might be between anarcho-capitalism (which I was into for a bit many years ago) and Tory anarchism.

I'll give Daniel McCarthy the last word here. As much as I doubt Tory anarchism is a great idea, I do like to see ideas presented this honestly and intelligently.

“[T]he way to bring about economic decentralization is through political decentralization; otherwise you’re just going to have some D.C. or Wall Street mastermind’s grand plan for what economic pluralism should look like. Politics and economics are tangential categories, and each can have a destructive influence on the other. I suppose what I would argue for as a big picture is to reduce the influence of concentrated economic and political power and thereby increase the relative sway of cultural, non-utilitarian, and non-coercive institutions. Ultimately, I’m enough of a free marketeer that I think much freer markets are compatible with a much richer culture, but even apart from the way I’d like things to work out, simply getting some variety back into America’s political economy — or political economies — would be a great thing.”

New Year's Resolutions, They Seem To Be The Same Every Year

It seems like it's always the same list. This is the year I'll get a better job. Or at least take some sort of vacation. How hard could it be to get my beautiful Serotta back in rideable condition given a twelve month timeframe? Etc.

Well, actually posting stuff on this here blog thing I've got is one of them. Activity seems to peak in early January, then I get distracted with other stuff. What can I say, I'm lazy. Anyways, I figure I can use the space to resurrect something along the lines of the "Link of the Day" thing I had going on Facebook. And to show off pictures I take.

Taking pictures more is another perpetual New Year's resolution of mine.

Aaaaaand... A Few More Before I Go To Bed

OK, so here's that first picture from the last batch again, but hopefully I've cut most of the noise out this time.


And here's Paul. He's the drummer for the Pink Parts, in case you aren't familiar. I might have oversharpened this to some extent, but I think it's still fine. Gotta show off that shallow depth of field.


Due to constraints of venue layout and fixed focal length of 50mm on a cropped sensor, I don't think I was ever able to get an entire band in one shot. This one has both Paul and Meredith in it, though. I think I've got a shot or two of just Paul that'll be in a future post.


Finally getting around to a Brendan shot. A bunch of the shots I've got from this night were at a 45 degree angle or something, and look totally amateurish in the cold, hard light of day. I'm sure there's more that's salvageable, though.

Pictures From All Asia, 8/5/10 (First Batch)

By my standards, this is really quick to get around to post processing. It hasn't even been three weeks yet. Maybe I'll get these done before the next Pink Parts show.

Anyways, let's start off with Maniac and Meredith. They look great in this picture. I tried to do what I could about the noise, but this was all at ISO 3200, which is the upper limit of what my camera can do. If I were a rich man, I'd get fancy noise reduction software, and a computer fast enough to run it on, and a million other things, like a decent meal now and then. But I digress. I do that sometimes.


Next up is an extreme close-up of Ben. The noise is less obvious in this one. Maybe I should try resizing these down to this size before uploading, rather than letting Picasa's uploader handle that part. Perhaps I'll have better luck uploading to Flickr. So many things to worry about.


Now we've got Ben and Steve sharing a scorpion bowl. Aren't they such an adorable couple? It was at this point in post-processing that I first discovered that the GIMP has the ability to imitate various black and white films. I'm a fan of Kodak Tri-X, though not really for any particularly good reason, so I chose that. Much better at hiding all that ISO noise.


Oh, and there were also bands playing. This is the lovely Meredith, of the Pink Parts. Having photographed these guys before, I've found that the best strategy is to take lots of pictures of Meredith, as she's hard to capture. Maybe one shot in ten I can get to work out well. I think one's a keeper. One nice thing about shooting with no flash is that you can get that cool motion blur on her right hand, really showing off the action. The disadvantage, of course is being pretty much stuck at f/1.4 and ISO 3200, so there's that noise I keep bitching about.


And another one of Meredith. Also another one in simulated Tri-X. Probably not the most flattering facial expression (sorry Meredith), but I think it was the only one with that sweet fist pump.


And lastly (for tonight), here's Tara blowing me a kiss. I think at this point, it was totally too dim for autofocus to work, so I was stuck focusing manually, which is a pain up close at f/1.4. This took a few attempts to get in focus, then I decided I liked this one better than the one that was in focus. It's got a certain feel to it, ya know? Used the Tri-X simulation again, then added a bit of the color back in. I think that was the right call for this image.


OK. That's it for now. My computer's old and slow, making the post-processing more of an annoying time-consuming pain in the arse than it should be. I promise to fight my way through more pictures soon. Still got two thirds of the Pink Parts that haven't even made an appearance. And whichever of Brian's bands it was that played after them. And some other stuff.

You're Friends With the Enemy of My Friends, or Something

I'm always confused at the way that life refuses to follow rules of logic. If someone is the enemy of my friend, they ought to be my enemy, I would think. And two people who are friends of mine ought to get along, just by logical necessity.

Alas, the commutative and associative properties that are so basic to mathematics are completely foreign to the workings of actual relationships between actual human beings. I think I'm the sort of person whose intuition gives him a good understanding of these sorts of mathematical principles, and much less understanding of human behavior.

Really, though, as much as it's simply beyond comprehension to me, I do love the illogical nature of pretty much all interpersonal interaction. On the other hand, I've never really felt at home with it at all. And by "it", I mean pretty much everything about the way normal people (or even the not-quite-so-normal people who make up most of my acquaintances) interact with each other.

I've often thought to myself that the way I deal with meeting new people is most similar to Jane Goodall meeting new chimps (or was it gorillas; for once I'm not going to look it up, just mentally substitute the correct non-human primate if it bothers you). First, I hang out in the periphery, quietly observing and hoping people get used to me being around. Then I slowly start picking up on the way socializing works, and slowly try to work my way into things.

Well, this actually turned out to be more personal than I intended. But it kind of felt good, so maybe I'll do more. Goodnight for now, though.