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July 27, 2011

Newsletter: Summer 2011

This is a quarterly email newsletter with ideas, cool links, book
recommendations and a personal update. 


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Read time: 2 1/2 minutes
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IDEAS
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1.  Neighborliness in the lonely city

Since moving to Brooklyn, I've thought much more about
neighborliness than when I lived near Wall Street. People idle here, 
a melange of music can be heard from apartments, car alarms go 
off at all hours, and there's an organic ebb and flow of people who 
you never say hello to but see regularly enough that you start thinking 
of them as your neighbors.

Neighborliness, though, is an odd sensation in a large city where the
combination of close proximity and anonymity sometimes lends to a 
sense of loneliness. New York City is like a giant campus where the
only matriculation requirement is agreeing to experience separateness 
together.
Coming from a small town, where perhaps we experience 
togetherness separately, I am constantly aware of this, yet it also
serves as a security blanket when race, gender, sexuality, income and 
all other variants of distinction begin to blur together. In the end, you refer 
to each other simply as survivalists, or more appropriately, human.

Here are some more thoughts on city living:

modern perspective on working back and forth between 
a small town and NYC.

local perspective empathetic to the dilemma of
neighborliness and loneliness in a large city.

A thorough New York Magazine article debunking the 
myth of urban loneliness.

2.  Is the singularity really near?

The more technology becomes part of our daily lives, the more I
think about Ray Kurzweil's idea of the singularity, a precipice-type 
event when technological intelligence is expected to surpass human 
intelligence.

AI, cylons and cyborgs immediately come to mind, but 
it's not far-flung science fiction when you see someone talking to 
thin air on their bluetooth or you pull up satellite-enabled, 
location-tracking GPS directions on your smartphone while driving. 
What seemed unlikely a decade ago, we already take for granted.

At the same time, advancement feels like it's outpacing us. No
matter what age, it seems like everyone is trying to find a balance 
between online and offline worlds. Adaptation to new technologies 
has become a necessary skill, though it's still uncertain how 
technology will impact communication in the long run. First, we 
may have to contend with the growth of technological inequality 
on a more global level.

Singularity-inducing technologies worth keeping an eye on:

NeuroSky uses EEG monitoring to type hands-free and send 
emails and tweets.

The Predator camera "fingerprints" your visual image to track 
movement and location.

World Lens translates language real-time using the camera on 
your smartphone.

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BOOKS
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1. The White Album by Joan Didion

Since reading it, I've touted this book to almost everyone I know.
Didion talks about everything under the sun in a dry, nonchalant
style that hits you unexpectedly, perhaps at dinner or when you're
out taking a walk. It requires the right mood - for me, it was
needing a dramatic change to my reading list. This is just the cure
for that. (I wrote a much more detailed review here)

2.    Presentation Zen by Garr Reynolds

I read this book over 3 years ago and came back to it because it
because of a renewed interest in storytelling. Powerpoint has
wisely lost ground with many since Reynolds came out with a better 
way to be persuasive. Going beyond the classroom or boardroom, 
this book targets the art of conversation altogether. An insightful and 
worthwhile read. (I'd also recommend The Back of the Napkin by 
Dan Roam as a wonderful companion read)

3. Just Kids by Patti Smith

Light, fun, and dare-I-say-it, a beach read with substance. I
didn't know who Patti Smith was when I read it, and that made it
all the better. Smith lilts along autobiographically through the
60's and 70's showing the plight and reward of becoming an artist.
This book is a rare opportunity to live vicariously through a
bygone era that still holds great influence today. (A more detailed 
review can be found here)

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CONNECT
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PERSONAL UPDATE
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I've been experiencing Brooklyn on my bike, which I recently
revived from its 8-year slumber in a storage box. No car and long
avenue blocks is a perfect excuse to use the bike more
functionally; to pick up groceries or dry cleaning or ride to the
park for a picnic.

My favorite biking adventures though have been on Governor's Island
a welcome escape from the daily hubbub of the city.

I'd love to hear how your summer is going. Drop me an email when
you get a chance!

Cheers,
Akshay 

July 6, 2011

Joan Didion - The White Album

Joan Didion makes me want to write.

I'm on a vacation/staycation, sweating in a humid apartment with two fans running, one in front, one behind me. I finished The White Album a week ago, reading The Year of Magical Thinking now and looking forward to her 56-page essay-book, Fixed Ideas: America Since 9.11. I only heard of her a month ago in June after finishing Patti Smith's Just Kids. I wanted more writing like that; non-fiction, in-depth explorations of life through an autobiographical lens.

For a sci-fi/fantasy reader, it's been a wayward and rewarding pleasure. If psychobabble holds any truth, I went from "escaping the real-world" to jumping in it full-fledged.
"Most of us live less theatrically, but remain survivors of a peculiar and inward time. If I could believe that going to a barricade would affect man's fate in the slightest I would go to that barricade, and quite often I wish that I could, but it would be less than honest to say that I expect to happen upon such a happy ending."
There's a distant apathy to her style. I picture her flippantly flicking her hand as words go from brain synapses firing onto the page. She's good, she knows it, and it bothers her. She achingly tries to elucidate this feeling in her writing. "A sense of anxiety or dread permeates much of her work", as an anonymous Wikipedia contributor references from an article about her.
"I gravitated to the random. I swung with the non-sequential."
She's more funny than serious though. More lost than analytical. She comes from wealth, is wealthy, and has a clear understanding that her station in life - as a renowned journalist and author - allows her (comped) access to varied aspects of life that others don't see. Her candor gives you front-row seats.
"Bike movies are made for all these children of vague "hill" stock who grow up absurd in the West and Southwest, children whose whole lives are an obscure grudge against a world they think they never made. These children are, increasingly, everywhere, and their style is that of an entire generation."
She's talking about the generation of the 70's, but I see the hipsters of today or sometimes the disconnected teen entrepreneurs or the laid-off brokers turned freelancers. Held accountable to rules that no longer pertain to them. Absurd, begrudging, distant.

I keep reading Didion because she keeps hinting at recurring themes. Having written since the early 60's till today, she could very well point out the "human search for meaning in a changing world". But it's something Obama might say in a campaign speech. We might see it on a billboard promoting Scientology, abortion rights, or Chase Bank. It may be assigned as a homework assignment in an English class focused on the classics; Of Mice and Men, Dickens, or Brave New World. The cliche doesn't bear repeating, so she writes to convey the feeling.