Noise Between Stations

Kitchen Table

The phrase comes from Owen, who once compared the conversation among blogs to chatting around the kitchen table.

  • Dreams come true

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    1 min read

    “It’s been my life’s dream to see the parade live. Once it starts, it means the holidays are here. My other dream is to get a jet pack.“ – NICHOLAS PERDUE, a 16-year-old at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.

  • Parodies of office life

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    1 min read

    I tried watching The Office but not only didn’t find it funny, it was a little painful. I mean, office life, particularly in big companies, is actually like that, why go home and watch more of it? On the other hand, I was happy to find Netflix carries The Newsroom, a parady that understands you…

  • A foray into paper publishing

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    1 min read

    An essay I wrote in 1991, Music and Censorship, will be included in an upcoming Pearson textbook, Music and Culture. Even more surprising is my company, the likes of (beware shameless name dropping) Copland, Paglia, Quindlen, and Bloom. It is some of my better writing: though the argument is weak in sections my style hasn’t…

  • The High Line Redesign

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    2 min read

    There’s a vestigal bit of elevated railray called the High Line that runs through about 20 blocks of the far west side of Manhattan. A contest to turn it into a park has resulted in the selection of Field Operations and Diller, Scofidio & Renfro who proposed a mixture of concrete paths and gardens. I’ve…

  • InfoDesign interview

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    1 min read

    Peter J. Bogaards was kind enough to chat with me for the InfoDesign Profile series. One question I didn’t have an answer for was, Who is your role model? It’d be great to have one, but it feels like the world is changing too fast for anyone else to consistenty interpret the world in a…

  • The Clearing

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    1 min read

    Once in a while the Monopoly game of life tosses us Second Prize in a Beauty Contest card. Last night, courtesy of the nice people at the New Yorker and Johnny Walker, I saw a preview of the film The Clearing with Robert Redford, Willem Dafoe and Helen Mirren. The plot was thriller, but the…

  • Wayfinding on crack

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  • Touring Ground Zero

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    1 min read

    If someone was to ask me how the new PATH station at the World Trade Center was situated and how the train arrived, I know what I wouldn’t say. I wouldn’t say it comes in above ground (the PATH is mostly underground) and tours the perimeter of the property, first traveling East along the North…

  • NYC Taxi Tips

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    1 min read

    My heart breaks when I see newbie tourists in Manhattan. The young woman the other day carrying armloads of luggage in the rain politely asking the cab driver if he drives to Queens. Here’s two tips to avoid the worst: Taxis must drive you anywhere in the five boroughs of New York City, period. The…

  • Happily Engaged

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  • Liebe

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  • Otterness

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    There’s so much good art in galleries and museums in New York, the public art pretty much sucks, having put our resources into nifty architecture and parks instead. The rare exception is Tom Otterness, who has installations all over town. Many, like the figures sprinkled throughout the 14th St IND station, carry a clear political…

  • The Brides of Central Park

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    1 min read

    Walking through the park today, we saw four or five wedding parties taking photos in one area. I started snapping photos of them, and walking on each corner we turned produced more brides .

  • The Spaghetti Under Wall St.

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  • Opera in the Park

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    1 min read

    Lying on the grass listening to La Boheme reminded me of when I was young, lying on the grass listening to Godspell in Thomas A. Edison Park.