Author: Jason Hensel
I joined twitter last week, and I already feel like an old man because I don’t understand the point of it. Why should I care what my friends are doing during the day? I don’t give a rat’s ass if you’re ironing your clothes, waiting for a meeting or about to slip into a hot bath. I figure if you’d want me to know, you’ll call me, or let me know the old fashioned way by blogging about it.
And why you’re at it, get off my lawn <—joke never gets old.
Send to KindleBlogs and I have an on again off again love affair. More specifically, I have issues with my own blog. Sure, your blog is cool and dresses well and is funny and interesting. Your blog is very tempting. I must admit, I’ve cheated on my blog with your blog more than once. It was just for fun; it didn’t mean anything. It was like we went bowling or cow tipping. But every time I hung out with your blog, I was reminded of mine, sitting there in its tiny Internet home, waiting to be tended to. The guilt, though, was always suppressed by another Web site or, now hang with me here, life away from a computer.
Today is another beginning. I’m coming home to my blog.
Starting tomorrow.
Send to Kindle“Perhaps the greenest party this year wasn’t billed as such. Deitch Projects was the host of a do last February for the publication of the photographer Jason Schmidt’s book, ‘Artists.’ The décor was supplied by Gelitin, four male Viennese conceptual artists who wore high heels and buckets on their heads but no pants, and who spent the evening building a plywood structure over the bewildered guests’ heads. Anthony Roth Costanzo, a countertenor, sang a 16th-century melody called ‘Flow My Tears.’ And then the Gelitin members, along with three Icelandic artists, also men, from a collective called Moms, took the buckets off their heads and urinated — with dead-eye accuracy, said Dodie Kazanjian, a Vogue editor and one of the events’ hosts — into one another’s pails.”
Send to KindleThis will be an ongoing series of my latest and baddest irrational fears.
First up: Tim Gunn and anyone from those What-Not-to-How-do-I-Look-to-Wear type of shows.
I’m totally scared of running into Tim Gunn–or any TV fashion person on the street–for fear that he will look me up and down and laugh at my sense of style. It’s not that I don’t dress well. In fact, I like to think that I look quite dashing today. It’s just that Tim Gunn’s whole job is to show people how to dress. Granted, he doesn’t put down people, but I see right through him. Behind those fitted jackets and color cordinated outfits, he’s secretly judging us.
Send to KindleYou know, people on the street always come up to me and ask, “Pimplomat, what the hell you been up to bud?” And I usually shrug and mutter something about jail and penguins and Connecticut. It’s enough to throw them off beam and let me get past them.
But here, my faithful three readers, I’m going to tell you what I’ve been up to lately. Honestly.
1) Jaymay. I love her voice and her lyrics and the little movements in her music. She has a new album coming out on 27 November 2007. Purchase it.
2) I’m taking an acting fundamentals class. I haven’t been on stage as an actor since 9th grade, and it’s something that I miss. This is a good way for me to either relive my past or revive a dying part of myself.
3) Travelling. I’ve been doing that a lot for work. Montreal, Berlin, Oslo, and Philadelphia were my last four trips. Berlin, I have you in my sight for a return trip. It truly was a love at first sight affair.
4) Applying for jobs in a big city that starts with New.
By the way, since I moved over to WordPress, I believe I lost some people that read my blog on a regular/semi-regular basis. If you’re one of those people and you’re still around, please drop a hello in the comments section. I’ll buy the first drink.
Send to KindleIt was a depressing night for me as the last precinct votes came in on Dallas’ Trinity Toll Road Plan on November 6. How can 42,279 voters be so wrong by approving a six-lane toll road in the middle of a planned world-class park?
I love Dallas. I stick up for every time someone throws it under the bus, which is quite often. But now…now I may just have to be driving that bus. These toll-road supporters have poured another slab of concrete in Dallas’ coffin with this vote.
The planned toll road is nothing more than a quick fix that only treats the symptoms—traffic congestion—and does nothing for the disease. By approving this measure, Dallas has also lost a great opportunity to embrace corporate social responsibility (CSR). A toll road equals more traffic, less green space and more noise.
A commenter on the Dallas Morning News Web site succinctly expressed my own thoughts: “What a sad, sad day in the history of this city. A misled majority (of the few voters that even bothered to turn out) has been swayed by the lies and threats spewing from our elected officials and the propaganda promulgated by this newspaper and other monied interests. Rejoice, Dallas! Now you finally get to pave your floodway and ruin your so-called ‘world class’ park! Will this Trinity ‘project’ be finished in my lifetime? Possibly. Will I remain in Dallas to see it happen?…”
For me, the answer to that last question is “I don’t know.” Why live in a city that doesn’t appear to embrace a balanced vision, one that appeals to big business as well as the needs of a creative working class?
“Waterfront revitalization is part of a nationwide shift from an industrial to a technological economy,” said Harris Steinberg, executive director of the University of Pennsylvania’s Penn Praxis design clinic, in the November 5 issue of the New York Times. “Waterfronts are really the playgrounds of the knowledge economy. This is what is going to attract the 20- and 30-somethings who will be the life blood of our future cities.”
Maybe this is the push I need to run for the District 2 seat on the Dallas City Council. I’m seriously considering it.
Send to KindleA few weeks ago, I visited Montreal for work. I did some things. I saw some things. I took pictures of things.
Send to KindleWondering why I don’t post as much? It’s because I’ve been making bread. Here’s proof.
Send to KindleLately, I’ve been reading all of the introductory essays in the Best American Travel Writing series, and I’ve noticed a recurring theme: storytelling. That seems like a “well duh” theme, but series editor Jason Wilson and the guest editors hit home the same point year after year—specifically, great travel stories are just that, stories. Sure, one can read articles full of facts and figures, and that’s great if you’re memorizing them for a test, but in reality, how many of those facts and figures will you remember a year from now? I’d place a bet that you’d remember a story that ignites your senses more than one that rattles off trivia like counting sheep.
So, how do we get to a place in our lives where a travel experience becomes more than a trip and one in which it becomes so much a part of us that we feel the need to share it with others?
In The Art of Travel, philosopher Alain de Botton may have the answer. De Botton—best know for his book How Proust Can Change Your Life—ruminates on why we travel and how we can make our travels more satisfying and memorable. The key, to him, is in the details, taking time to ask the questions of why and how about destinations. Instead of following a guidebook, for example, and letting it tell you what is important in a city and why it’s important, de Botton suggests that you step away from the common tourist flow and follow your own path.
“What, then, is a travelling mind-set?” de Botton asks. “Receptivity might be said to be its chief characteristic. Receptive, we approach new places with humility. We carry with us no rigid ideas about what is or is not interesting.”
To de Botton, “journeys are the midwives of thought.” Introspective time spent on a plane (or in a car or train) can open up the mind to new ideas that otherwise would have been blunted in everyday, working life. This reflection gives us time to formulate why we enjoyed our trip, or why we’re even taking one.
De Botton’s fascinating, philosophical book has caused me not only to be more mindful of my travels, but to explore why I enjoy travel stories and what I enjoy about them.
Upon contemplation, the travel articles that I enjoy are the ones that, as Wilson says, “transcend their chosen destinations.” I enjoy writers who “understand that a trip’s context is as important as the trip itself.”
In the 2002 Best American Travel Writing introduction, guest editor Frances Mayes wrote, “I found that what I remembered, what seemed to transcend topic and what affected me were not only essays with a grounded sense of place, but ones written in a highly personal voice.”
This personal voice, though, can only be found with introspection, contemplation of what is going on around you, breaking down what your senses are registering and figuring out what they mean to you.
A good way of doing so is through writing and telling stories. Sharing with others your experience not only entertains, but makes you more aware of what you’re sharing. You may self-censor a story, because you don’t think others will find it interesting. That is when you should stop and ask, “Why don’t I find this interesting?” Only then can you begin to enjoy the art of traveling (and the art of storytelling) for what it really is—a journey of self discovery.
Send to KindleIn July, I’m visiting Montréal to attend one of my work’s conferences. Since I’m prepping the daily conference paper, I decided to check out which bands will be in town for me to see. I found two likable local bands that are playing while I’m there. Check ’em out; you might enjoy them, too.
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Send to KindleThanks to the Plus One, and her cable access, I get to watch the History Channel and feed my addiction of Digging for the Truth.
Sure, I love my job, and I get to travel to exciting places, but damn, I’d love to be the host of that show. The original host is gone, and will be replaced by four new hosts. Why couldn’t I be one of them!?
I don’t know what it is, but I’ve been really getting into outdoor survival/adventure shows lately, like Truth and Man vs. Wild. Maybe I just need to go camping. I haven’t been in ages, and I used to go every summer growing up. I even once attended survival camp in Boy Scouts and ate a snake.
Really, that’s just what this is: I want to eat a snake.
Send to KindleYesterday, Adam Kirsch in The New York Sun wrote
“In fact, despite what the bloggers themselves believe, the future of literary culture does not lie with blogs — or at least, it shouldn’t. The blog form, that miscellany of observations, opinions, and links, is not well-suited to writing about literature, and it is no coincidence that there is no literary blogger with the audience and influence of the top political bloggers.”
I, personally, find that view shortsighted. In a world that is continually moving toward a leadership society, blogs are the conduit of mass creativity. What better way to discuss the literary merits of a book than to open up the conversation via a blog to the masses? Blogs are the new coffee shops, and the quicker people realize that they don’t need a suit or an ivory tower professor telling them what is good and bad the better.
When people come to their own conclusions about what is meritable (either by their own thinking or through lively debate with others), then in my opinion, the world will be a better place. Yes, we still live in a world of sheepeople, but more and more I’m seeing people stray from the herd, and that makes me happy.
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