tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-59100303581660524392024-03-13T14:23:23.385-04:00bioluminescenceJuliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14336442215279529620noreply@blogger.comBlogger524125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5910030358166052439.post-59850821852892192672020-10-19T22:04:00.030-04:002020-10-20T21:22:22.106-04:00I’m on a Bus to Somewhere <p>I am often the only passenger on it, nestled in the rows and rows of plush seats, with a place to charge my phone, ebbing and bumping over urban hills I didn’t even know existed. Whooshing by the Harlem River—a sparkly beauty behind a chain link fence. I am a six dollar and seventy-five cent princess, just me, on this giant whale of a vehicle. The express bus to the Bronx. It is now almost a daily journey. A new route, but also, several old routes tangled into an ugly-beautiful, convenient-inconvenient one. </p><p>Two different express busses travel from Manhattan to the Riverdale section of the Bronx. One bus route begins right outside the design studio where I worked from 2001-2006. It waits, sleeping with its lights off, at the very corner I stood looking down 3rd avenue in the late morning on 9/11/01. It then travels all the way up 3rd avenue and drops me feet from my new job in Riverdale. On the way back into Manhattan, it passes right by the genetics lab on Lexington where I worked from 2004-2013. It is an existential schlep. The other express bus line, on the West side, picks me up right outside the Museum where I worked from 2013-2019. I will never pass these places without remembering. <span style="background-color: white;">The busses also pass diners I’ve lingered in, drinking what I thought was decaf coffee but wasn’t; shoe stores where I wanted to, but never bought anything; former delis that turned into Duane Reade’s; and even the Duane Reade is closed now too. I can still hear conversations with old friends. </span></p><p>Many times lately I have been the only rider on the bus. And many times I ride the bus from the beginning of its route all the way to the end—both incredibly dubious honors to hold. They are wasting gas on me, and I am ripping them off by only paying $6.75. I cannot tell if I am in the gutter, or I am urban royalty.</p><p>These two express busses to Riverdale are dreams. But not your wildest, aspirational kind. The nighttime kind, where people and places from different parts of your life blend together into one scene and then you warp into another dimension and wake up confused yet slightly intrigued. These days, I wake up before the sun, and am on the bus by 7:15 am. For me, this is another dimension. I am not a morning person and to say that this schedule is viscerally painful for me would not be an overstatement. I feel especially sad, dramatic and sentimental at that time of the morning, which all adds to the dreamscape feel of the ride.</p><p>In 2014 three scientists won the Nobel Prize for discovering how the brain creates a mental map and navigates the world. They placed a rat in a maze and every time the rat went into certain areas of the maze, specific neurons fired. So, the top left corner of the maze activated the same group of brain cells, again and again. These neurons are called “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Place_cell#:~:text=A%20place%20cell%20is%20a,known%20as%20a%20cognitive%20map." target="_blank">place cells</a>” and are located in the hippocampus. They didn’t ask the rat if the top left corner of the maze made them lonely or sentimental. And what happens if you put the rat on a bus? Humans have place cells too. </p><p><span style="background-color: white;">Because I don’t drive, I hardly see these parts of Manhattan stitched together into the same island. I have descended into, and ascended out of, the subways for so long that I have split a few miles, and about 20 years, into what seem like massive individual fragments. The bus reminds me thats it’s all just one city, a time-space continuum with traffic lights, scaffolding, and now restaurants in the bike lane</span><span style="background-color: white;">—but mostly—it reminds me of regular days with people I used to know. Because sometimes, places are people too. </span></p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-sr5csWEClF0/X44vEPKaJuI/AAAAAAAARMc/shwacoRhYy8tEtBP6w5Pzrt6EMNVKJrDwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1280/IMG_3100.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="960" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-sr5csWEClF0/X44vEPKaJuI/AAAAAAAARMc/shwacoRhYy8tEtBP6w5Pzrt6EMNVKJrDwCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/IMG_3100.JPG" /></a></div><span><div style="text-align: center;"><span> Me on the express bus </span></div></span><div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jzcfHW4HOiU/X44vB3367oI/AAAAAAAARMY/PLS3RNt7VNkzNJiocQDIJtbfjWRuCrL_ACLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/IMG_3159%2B2.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jzcfHW4HOiU/X44vB3367oI/AAAAAAAARMY/PLS3RNt7VNkzNJiocQDIJtbfjWRuCrL_ACLcBGAsYHQ/s320/IMG_3159%2B2.JPG" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Harlem River</div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fLn5hUpqOSM/X44vWfnNunI/AAAAAAAARM8/M6I4tT_bEzIePQq8BTN9bNSbDEMGLu75QCLcBGAsYHQ/s1440/FC745566-7CB1-4EA3-8ECD-D64A31ED699C.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1440" data-original-width="1440" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fLn5hUpqOSM/X44vWfnNunI/AAAAAAAARM8/M6I4tT_bEzIePQq8BTN9bNSbDEMGLu75QCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/FC745566-7CB1-4EA3-8ECD-D64A31ED699C.JPG" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQiOA7euaYA">Lone rider, rows of empty plush seats</a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9VONpBUOtT0/X44u3bSUktI/AAAAAAAARMM/R_mkcp7_DcoJO9f_n2OmCs2iyM5K00FGACLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/IMG_3210.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9VONpBUOtT0/X44u3bSUktI/AAAAAAAARMM/R_mkcp7_DcoJO9f_n2OmCs2iyM5K00FGACLcBGAsYHQ/s320/IMG_3210.JPG" /></a></div><span><div style="text-align: center;"><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span>“Crack is Wack” mural by Keith Haring, 1989 (East 128th Street and Harlem River Drive) </div></span><div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4tn7rh_f6XQ/X44u1EljSLI/AAAAAAAARMI/hfEUOBiAmhA8A_9qQYLo4J_wwXMm0PbVgCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/IMG_3254.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4tn7rh_f6XQ/X44u1EljSLI/AAAAAAAARMI/hfEUOBiAmhA8A_9qQYLo4J_wwXMm0PbVgCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/IMG_3254.JPG" /></a></div><span><div style="text-align: center;"><span> </span>Just a bunch of garbage I saw out the window of the bus today.</div></span></div></div>Juliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14336442215279529620noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5910030358166052439.post-58096584490808581652020-06-14T12:33:00.000-04:002020-06-15T13:13:57.070-04:00Walk the Walk <div style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
It is not museums or concerts. It is <span style="background: white;">not </span>leisurely crosstown busses, sunset skylines or even reasonably priced excellent restaurants. It is certainly not crowds or subways, or crowded subways.<o:p></o:p></div>
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What I have missed most during the pandemic is walking. But I am not just talking about the biomechanical act of bipedalism. I mean walking with an unstoppable, get-away-from-me-I-am-going-somewhere-without-you, purpose: towards an imaginary anywhere, but via, everywhere.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Although walking through New York is a “hike in the woods” of sorts; it is not a hike in the woods. It is not a stroll around the suburban block to peek at the neighbor’s yard. It is more like hopscotch than it is like a treadmill. It is dodging and weaving: over sidewalk irregularities, under scaffolding, avoiding cyclists wooshing by. It is safe until suddenly, it isn’t really, but then quickly, it is again.<o:p></o:p></div>
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It is a series of darkened circles of old gum atop the intermittent glitter of concrete. <i>Who chews so much gum?</i> It is the mini rush of relief after I avoid stepping in something. It is a little past life so gone and dried that I can’t tell if it was a mammal or a bird: 300 million years of evolution flattened into an indiscernible urban pancake. Poor thing.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I did not grow up in New York City. I got my driver’s license at sixteen in the suburbs. But I was always an anxious driver. My mother was also anxious, especially in snow, and my father was sexist. So driving was a much bigger drama than it had to be, and I felt trapped. Thankfully, I was surrounded by a group of independent young women friends and they drove me everywhere. I was a B+ front seat companion. I talked too much and if I was supposed to navigate we were 100% going to be lost. But we would be laughing. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Coming from this suburban situation, walking in NYC was downright practical. But it was also a rebellion. I didn’t need to pump gas and I didn’t need anyone’s fucking help. I walked so the anxiety, the sexism and the horrendous sense of direction were behind me. But it gave me more than just a means of getting around. It calmed me down, I saw things, I felt full of purpose and strong. Walking in NYC is a smorgasbord of people-watching but also – a flagrant spree of ignoring everyone. It is Mary Tyler Moore, and it is environmentally green. But mostly, it opened my mind to the thought landscapes you cannot access while sitting around — probably via endorphins disguised as hope. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">I am certainly not the first human to celebrate walking. In fact, walking is perhaps the oldest human story out there. <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/walking-helps-us-think">P</a></span><span style="color: #954f72; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/walking-helps-us-think">oets, writers, artists, scientists and philosophers</a></span></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> have been living and breathing the secrets of walking for centuries.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> And our hominin ancestors have been walking on two legs for at least 6 million years. When we examine the past, searching for scientific evidence, we cannot know if walking gave </span><i style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Homo erectus</i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> the courage and the vision to travel farther than any other hominin had before. We just know they had the long legs. But which came first: the vision or the legs? </span></div>
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I know for <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWYdMRlCoMM">me</a> that walking is not simply a form of locomotion, it is a way of life which began as protest and ended up being a drug — one that despite being the most humble and hackneyed human behavior out there, still sometimes convinces me that I am going places.<br />
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Juliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14336442215279529620noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5910030358166052439.post-50196300400245283382020-06-01T18:20:00.004-04:002020-06-26T10:09:33.733-04:00Eyes Without a FaceIt’s smart. It’s socially responsible. It’s awkward, it’s science, it’s love but people hate it and it’s only slightly bigger than a piece of toast, but more the proportions of a postcard. It’s a pandemic postcard: from me, to you.<br />
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The primary purpose of the everyday fabric mask is not to protect you from coronavirus. The purpose is to protect others from <i>your</i> facial droplets which, may, or may not contain coronavirus. In that way, it is a public display of affection, a tip of your hat, a neo-politeness<span style="background-color: white;">. Have we ever had such a powerful accessory - both intensely personal and flagrantly public – in our everyday lives? I haven’t. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">Did you ever try to put booties on a dog? And then watch them march around like a weirdo after? That’s how I feel wearing a mask. </span>The mask’s presence<span style="background-color: white;"> smolders on my face. It shifts my</span> sensory and social experience like I have glasses on upside down, but it’s not funny. I don’t wear glasses and I cannot stand stupid things like snorkels or even kaleidoscopes touching my face. So you are telling me the mask is on <i>my</i> face, but it’s not about me? How’s that for a riddle? But we have to accept this minor discomfort and collective reality and just get used to it.<br />
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Here in New York City, masks are mandatory in many places and highly diverse in their morphology, materials and probably efficacy. Governor Cuomo has been urging the wearing of masks for weeks, he ran a contest for the best public service announcement about the importance of wearing a mask, <a href="https://coronavirus.health.ny.gov/node/2871">here is the winner</a>. He has even given the power to <a href="https://newyork.cbslocal.com/2020/05/28/mask-shaming-nyc/">turn the maskless</a> away in stores, on busses, etc.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Trader Joe’s, Columbus Ave. and 93rd St., May 31, 2020</td></tr>
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The impact of wearing a mask is staggeringly profound: epidemiologically, socially, even fashion-wise. I have been ruminating about this for weeks: how can one strip of fabric serve such an essential function, but also communicate and evoke such wildly conflicting messages?<br />
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<b>What about the science behind masks? </b><br />
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At first, we were told not to wear them because they would increase the probability of touching your own face and therefore inadvertently increase disease transmission. Also, health care workers needed the N95 masks and they did not want everyone buying them. The part about touching your face is still relevant, and there are certain<span style="background-color: white;"> <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/docs/2010-133/pdfs/2010-133.pdf">best practices</a> for mask wearing</span> that medical professionals adhere to.<br />
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But also, because of how rapid this pandemic has progressed, there is a dearth of empirical data on how fabric face coverings, worn by a whole population,<span style="background-color: white;"> affect </span>the spread of coronavirus specifically [UPDATE: a new article was just published about the effectiveness of masks to prevent spread of COVID-19, see <a href="https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2020/06/10/2009637117?fbclid=IwAR3pzwyuXIPPeuqPJq1IxqDTwJzFIciPBkPY28W0Q5ylFi2WiHaPWk9jBR0">here</a>].Though a few studies with small sample sizes are out <a href="https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M20-1342">there</a>, and <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/340603522_Face_Masks_Against_COVID-19_An_Evidence_Review">this</a> is a hot-off-the-not-yet-press that reviews all of the relevant literature together. Look at section 3, <i>Filtering Capability of Masks</i>, this is my favorite quote, “Particle sizes for speech are on the order of 1<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">μm”. </span>This is quantifying the size of droplets that disperse when you talk. Here, speech - which I thought was a little more than spitting into the wind - isn’t.<br />
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And several other studies have focused on the physics of droplets and how they scatter when you <a href="https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2020/05/12/2006874117">talk</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P27HRClMf2U">cough</a> or <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/30/health/running-exercising-masks-coronavirus.html?searchResultPosition=18">run</a>.<br />
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Our daily fabric masks are, in some ways, an “experiment in progress”, which can be uncomfortable. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=75&v=Qg8sRsERlwU&feature=emb_logo">New discoveries</a> and data regarding the coronavirus are unfolding each minute. Certain studies really require years of longitudinal data and rigorous analysis and not a quick reductionist quote to the popular press. On a regular day, science can be seen all around us in technology and medicine, but the process of science never fully shows its face: the messiness, the time it takes, the failure. Now, we have all entered into the lab together as a society. And people are standing over scientists,<span style="background-color: white;"> breathing down their necks, and demanding they are more certain about unknowns. The fabric masks</span> are some of this.<br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">There are some data on the <a href="https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/full/10.7326/L20-0175">N95 masks protecting health care workers</a>. But, to be continued for sure. </span><br />
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<b>And, how do we socialize in a mask? </b><br />
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One of the twisted riddle-risks is that wearing a fabric mask does not make you invincible, so you should not act that way. People’s behavior while wearing a mask may make them more bold and therefore counteract the effectiveness of the mask in the first place. This is a potential problem. Cover your mouth and nose and, ideally, keep 6 feet apart - not a recipe for intimacy or even smooth communication with anyone. So what does mask culture mean for interpersonal relations?<br />
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It will mean we have to gesture in different ways to communicate things like <a href="https://cupofjo.com/2020/05/how-to-be-friendly-while-wearing-a-mask/">kindness,</a> thank you’s and their unkind opposites. You can’t see people smile except with their eyes - which is sort of sweet and literary - but also incredibly subtle in some cases. I have seen people nodding their heads to others and I recently gave someone a thumbs up in real life (not just an emoji). I already talk with my hands, maybe now that will be seen as a more positive attribute.<br />
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And can a mask be an expression of <a href="https://apnews.com/7dce310db6e85b31d735e81d0af6769c">your politics</a>? Is it the flag of the face? It is difficult for me to think this way because of where I live right now. But I know in other parts of the country it can seem this way because masks are more optional. So, wearing one exposes your values, acceptance of science, perceived compliance, anxiety perhaps. And anyway it doesn’t have to be political. It’s not a flag or a muzzle. It’s more like a facial tissue that stays put. Who would argue with you about your use of Kleenex? I get it, I do, but it’s stupid.<br />
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And there are also more serious social <a href="https://www.vox.com/identities/2020/3/6/21166625/coronavirus-photos-racism">complications</a> like <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/04/05/opinion/why-i-dont-feel-safe-wearing-face-mask/">racial issues</a> or challenges for those who are <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/90501218/face-masks-are-terrible-for-the-deaf-and-hard-of-hearing-designers-need-to-do-better">hard of hearing</a>. I am privileged that I do not experience these issues.<br />
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One unequivocal plus of the mask is that you can mutter under your breath in a much louder way, and no one sees you. Now we’re talkin'! I have found this particularly helpful as I navigate the landscape of the new and aching city and what distance means to me. In the market especially, where I have always wanted to mutter, because it kind of always sucks because someone is reaching for the same exact item as you want on the shelf, at the same exact time - and now I can mutter away without really getting into an altercation. Here, the mask is an accessory to enable my continued passive aggressiveness.<br />
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Related to that, the mask makes my emotions more cryptic and my face more anonymous, which I like. But I won’t say anything more about that.<br />
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<b>And what about mask fashion? </b><br />
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As we bear down on the absolute essentials of life: is fashion generally dead, with masks the final unsightly straw? Can you be all dressed up and wear a mask? Or is it—like my old office cardigan that I did not wash nearly enough—an “outfit ruiner”?<br />
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Can I feel pretty in a mask? <i>not really</i>. Does someone look handsome in a mask? <i>not really.</i> It’s all about the lips, <a href="https://www.nycgo.com/restaurants/trattoria-dellarte">noses</a> and jawlines I guess.<br />
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People have been <a href="https://www.brides.com/wedding-masks-4845094">married in masks</a>, and blessed are those who have gone the distance to color coordinate their masks with their <a href="https://www.vogue.com/article/nancy-pelosi-color-coordinated-face-mask-pantsuit">pantsuits</a>. I am not there yet.<br />
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And remember when masks were fun, like on Halloween? Me neither.<br />
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What about mask sizing? One size most certainly does not fit all faces, there is a lot of <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S004724841400178X">variation</a>.<br />
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<a href="https://news.artnet.com/art-world/museums-starting-coronavirus-collections-1827606">Museums</a> are already collecting mask memorabilia as a piece of pandemic history. And of course people all over the world are getting creative and churning out homemade masks which are expressions of love and sewing skills -<span style="background-color: white;"> a little bit heartbreaking, a little bit lovely.</span> I will always cherish the homemade masks that were sent to me during this strange time.<br />
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This post was supposed to be a short mediation on masks, but it’s more complicated than that. And even though this is the end of my post, this story is far from over.<br />
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<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OFpfTd0EIs">Eyes Without A Face</a><br />
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More mask articles at these links: </div>
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<a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-to-use-masks-during-the-coronavirus-pandemic/">https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-to-use-masks-during-the-coronavirus-pandemic/</a></div>
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<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/01/health/masks-surgical-N95-coronavirus.html?algo=identity&fellback=false&imp_id=800027757&action=click&module=Science%20%20Technology&pgtype=Homepage">https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/01/health/masks-surgical-N95-coronavirus.html?algo=identity&fellback=false&imp_id=800027757&action=click&module=Science%20%20Technology&pgtype=Homepage</a></div>
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<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/02/arts/virus-mask-trump.html?searchResultPosition=2">https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/02/arts/virus-mask-trump.html?searchResultPosition=2</a></div>
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<br />Juliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14336442215279529620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5910030358166052439.post-7281450718991964632020-05-25T14:48:00.003-04:002020-05-26T13:06:23.416-04:00Trail of Cheers The first time I heard it, I flung open my bathroom window and turned my face up to the little bit of big sky. The sound came mostly from the distance. I couldn’t see one person on the street or in their window making a noise. I clapped anyway into the new and strange lonely-together oblivion. I felt a little silly but I yelled a few times, and then I cried.<br />
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Every night at 7 PM in New York City people cheer to thank the essential workers who are on the ground caring for COVID-19 patients and keeping the city going.<br />
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Quickly, exponentially, more people caught on to the meaning of the cheer and it became louder and increasingly synchronized - with more diverse expressions like car horns and pots or pans. It was the most heartbreakingly human thing: terrible, beautiful, spontaneous, loving - all of it. It reminded me of the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqOOUJFv1n0" target="_blank">Whos down in Whoville</a> when they learn that the Grinch stole Christmas, but they sing anyway. Many times the sound of sirens threatened to dampen the cheer’s rolling crescendo and birds chirped their hearts out in interspecific unison.<br />
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The cheer has gone on for half of the month of March, all of April and now it is May 25th. In the beginning of April the deaths reached a peak here. On April 9th, 800 deaths were recorded in New York City alone. (see 7 PM video below from that day)<br />
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Data was king as the world learned together about epidemic curves and exponential growth. Home schooling, at its most unfortunate. Together, we checked the curve rising exponentially each day, the line looking more horrifyingly vertical. And after the mercifully narrow peak, the curve came down on the other side. But it did not fall at the same rate that it rose. <i>Of course it didn’t.</i> But this is something that did not occur to me back in March. It fell more slowly than it rose. The graph of new deaths per day in New York City looks more <a href="https://gothamist.com/news/coronavirus-statistics-tracking-epidemic-new-york">like a rollercoaster</a> than it does a bell. It is asymmetrical.<br />
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I wonder about the 7 PM cheer data too, was it louder at the peak? Is it louder in those neighborhoods most impacted by the virus? What are the varieties of sounds coming from different neighborhoods? I hope a resourceful nerd out there has recorded these data in a systematic way. Many articles have been written, like <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/09/arts/virus-quarantine-clapping.html" target="_blank">this one</a>, some people have praised the ritual of the cheer, while others have derided it as meaningless. But it went on.<br />
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Night after night I looked forward to it because it helped me feel like I was saying thank you and marked the passing of time in a joyous way. It also taught me about my neighborhood through a new kind of metric of its humanity, its collective voice of resilience echoing off the built environment we call home. I shared videos of the cheer with family and friends. One evening, I perched my laptop out the window so friends on zoom could hear. I ended up seeing a Red-tailed hawk circling above during the cheer which seemed all the more chaotic. My faraway friends couldn’t really hear it, or see it, but they humored me anyway.<br />
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But as the pandemic wore on, I became tired of the cheer and on certain nights, I kept my window closed. What was it doing anyway? How did the essential workers actually feel about it? People were dying, there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it - <a href="https://www.loc.gov/poetry/180/133.html">and with my one wild and precious life</a> - I was restless and bored. Like a brat in a cage. I was a part of something, but also not a part of anything anymore.<br />
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I am fine, really. But some days are irrationally up and others are irrationally down. On the up days I think maybe the cheer should go on forever, because a daily ritual of gratitude and togetherness in this crazy city just sounds emotionally nourishing. But then, that seems more about the clapper than those that are being clapped for. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/23/world/europe/uk-clap-for-carers-nhs-coronavirus.html?searchResultPosition=1" target="_blank">Some </a>think it’s time for the cheer to stop or change, and perhaps become a yearly ritual to remember those who have died.<br />
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People who died in the influenza pandemic of 1918 <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/14/business/1918-flu-memorials.html?searchResultPosition=1">were not formally memorialized</a> because World War I was the priority of politicians of the time. During the time the flu raged, politicians deliberately did not mention it because they didn’t want their country to appear vulnerable. And when it was over, the average person who needed to keep living wanted to forget, so they did.<br />
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But for those <i>still</i> working tirelessly to save lives, for those who didn’t make it down the other side, and because epidemiologically, it isn’t over yet: I am going to cheer again tonight, but I will not be opening a window - I am going outside.<br />
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#ClapBecauseWeCare #MemorialDayJuliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14336442215279529620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5910030358166052439.post-15566197181239223192020-05-03T18:27:00.002-04:002020-05-16T17:11:49.737-04:00Painting My Way Back Home It isn’t over yet. And when it is, I will miss it.<br />
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My arm is sore today from painting my hallway yesterday. It is now a pale bright bluey-green. And one coat away from being finished. The process of painting has been calming: to watch the foam brush loaded with a color I love—in a sexy goopy form. In this case, painting is progress. And I have taken it so slowly, which has given me immense pleasure.<br />
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First, I patched holes in the wall and sanded. Don’t ask why the holes were there, or never patched. Some days all I did was get up on a chair and sand a section of the wall smaller than an iPhone 6. But I worked hard and stretched and strained my fingers to the absolute maximum. Then, I got down from the chair, washed my hands, and returned to sitting.<br />
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I also painted the <a href="http://whatglows.blogspot.com/2020/04/reach-for-clouds.html" target="_blank">ceiling</a>.<br />
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This pandemic has provoked every emotion and like ghosts or aromas they come in amorphous waves sometimes overlapping and creating new and unfamiliar feelings. Also, old feelings come back again. Like looking at yourself in the mirror for the first time in many years.<br />
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Paint dripped on my painting pants, making them into a little bit more of what they truly are. Paint filled the dingy neglected wall surface like a viscous version of “it’s going to be okay”. I forgot for a few minutes. I remembered.<br />
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I have never been to the Tenement Museum because I imagine they will take me on a tour of what looks like my own apartment. The other day I reassured my Mother that if I fell off the chair while painting, my hallway is so narrow - it would catch me in its pre-war wood trimmed arms. I never fell.<br />
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My kitchen is orange and now the adjoining hallway is this pale green. These colors vibrate beside each other. They create light and shadow beyond the actual light and shadow. I had a painting teacher once who told us that yellow beside light blue “makes light”. This has always stuck with me. I know painting my apartment is not the same thing as painting a painting—but here, I blurred the lines between inside and art.<br />
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The hallway has transcended its original form, it’s now closer to the gods, it sings, it downright glows. But really, it’s just better. Which reminds me. I like to paint.<br />
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Update see below: <i>Fin </i><br />
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<br />Juliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14336442215279529620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5910030358166052439.post-49009456651200231782020-04-14T16:37:00.003-04:002020-04-14T16:47:41.171-04:00Reach for the Clouds He walked in and looked straight up at the ceiling. Who does that unless they are in the Sistine Chapel? We weren’t.<br />
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Years ago, an electrician did a botched job on my apartment ceiling. He patched up the holes with what looks like spackle, sand, and best I can approximate, a soupçon of self-loathing<span style="background-color: white;"><i>?</i></span> Who knows what he did to the electrical wiring. But, the ceiling surface he left<span style="background-color: white;"> was rough and downright dirty. </span>As a result, I have a trail of footprint-like blobs, or on a good day—badly painted clouds, all across my apartment ceiling. It has been this way for 12+ years now.<br />
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I am so used to it, that I never look up. But, about 2 years ago when my landlord entered, he looked up and noticed it immediately. And then, in his prince charming savior-mode he asked me when I wanted it painted, because—after decades of apartment neglect, radical cheapness, honest mistakes and stupid mistakes from his cheapness—he could arrange for it as soon as possible. I made some mumbling noises and smiled. It was never painted.<br />
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When I arrived back at my apartment one night, 12+ years ago, the “electrician” was standing at the gate outside my building. It was cold, but he wasn’t wearing a jacket. I looked at him, puzzled. In the morning I had left him inside my apartment to do the electrical work on the ceiling. He had been locked out, without a key, at I-will-never-know-what-time-o’clock.<br />
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So, I let him back inside. His dirty yellow winter jacket was slumped over my kitchen chair and two beers were on my table. They were not my beers. He was drinking in my apartment, on the job, on the ceiling. I was appalled. But not as appalled as I was about to be.<br />
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He also left my refrigerator unplugged and broke a vase. And he opened my clothing closet so that the shoulders of all of my clothes were covered in a fine ceiling dust. I had absolutely <i>had</i> it. So, I never let him in again. Or, anyone else. And I forgot about it, mostly.<br />
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Cut to COVID-19 quarantine as my eyes wandered up and I pondered the fragility of human existence—I decided to sand and paint the ceiling. Finally, the time had come. Well, it turns out, painting a ceiling is pretty damn difficult (says my neck). My apartment is a railroad, it is very narrow and long. One nice feature it has is that the ceilings are a little bit high. Until you go to paint them. Holy. Moly.<br />
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I am writing this on my break from painting. I am not drinking beer, but maybe I should be.<br />
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<i><a href="https://youtu.be/z_vVFC7URkc" target="_blank">To be continued...</a></i><br />
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<br />Juliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14336442215279529620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5910030358166052439.post-75385607578112457872020-04-09T13:18:00.001-04:002020-04-12T18:34:14.313-04:00Barefoot in Birdland I turned my back to the pond and faced a very slight grassy incline. I stood there, in my vintage re-issued blue and purple Nikes. And suddenly, I was totally surrounded—by hopping, bobbing, cheeping, and whirring. This unabashed cheerfulness seemed to sparkle as the birds took turns disappearing and reappearing from my peripheral view. In that moment, I felt like a Disney princess. In sneakers.<br />
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Many of the birds were set on finding something—<i>anything</i>—in the grass in Central Park. A Robin kicked up some dirt with its beak. A group of 7 or so Starlings suspiciously creeped away with their heads still in the grass (<a href="https://www.audubon.org/field-guide/bird/european-starling" target="_blank">open-bill probing</a>). I saw one Flicker and a few Gray-cheeked Thrushes too.<br />
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Birds have taken on a new meaning lately. Because even when you stay in one place, they come to you, without asking. They perch and prance and, like a friend you adore, they always leave <i>just </i>before you want them to. I have been appreciating a few old favorites lately, most of them invasive species in New York (House Sparrows, Starlings and Pigeons). They are just as spirit-lifting as the native birds to me, now especially. That sounds ecologically selfish, I know. But, trust me, I am no <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_Schieffelin" target="_blank">Eugene Schieffelin</a>.<br />
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And as if living birds didn’t feel ephemeral enough—flying in and out of our lives—they didn’t leave a fabulous fossil record either. Their bones are hollow and light so they can fly, which isn’t a recipe for a great fossil, it turns out. Though, the oldest bird fossil is ~150 million years old. So, for birds, it’s been a while. Humans, not so much (~200,000 years ago). And human <i>shoes</i>, have only been around for a mere <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Areni-1_shoe" target="_blank">5,500 years</a>.<br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">Because in addition to thinking about birds, I have been thinking about shoes. I look around my apartment—on shelves, under furniture, in closets—and I wonder why I needed so many different types of shoes? Where was I going? What occ</span>asions called for this morphological diversity of footwear? Will I ever need these again? Right now, I am having trouble picturing a world, and a routine, that necessitates all of these different shoe types. Most days now, I am barefoot.<br />
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If an archeologist found my shoe collection they might infer that I had a full life, with many different types of places to go—upscale, downscale, understated, too high, comfy, just right—for all seasons. And they would be right.<br />
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Also, in Central Park the other day, I watched two starlings splashing around in a man-made waterfall. They were flicking and flitting their iridescent wings, furiously. It would have been perfectly adorable, but the background noise was sirens. And the longer they splashed, the more sirens sped by. You cannot forget what is happening now. It is a somber time is all I can say. And no bird can save us. But something about the starlings not knowing or caring felt comforting.<br />
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My life feels like it is shrinking lately (and don’t get me wrong, I am thankful I <i>have</i> a life to shrink), but the birds remind me that there is more out there, beyond this little apartment, and that patch of Park grass. There will be new times to wear all different shoes, and places to go again some day. And I know this because, a little bird told me.Juliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14336442215279529620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5910030358166052439.post-18508951898116859672020-04-06T18:31:00.000-04:002020-04-07T08:49:11.476-04:00The Longest Curve <div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Coronavirus is currently ripping through our dear city. And all I can hear are emergency vehicles, cathedral bells—and a deep and eerie silence. I am one of the lucky ones. But my Great Grandfather wasn’t.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">It was 1918. My Great Grandfather died in November in the second, more virulent, wave of the influenza pandemic. He was 54 years old. He left behind a son who was 14 years old. That fourteen year old son was my grandfather; my father’s father. And though this was over 100 years ago now, my own father recounts this story of intergenerational grief like it was yesterday.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">My Great Grandfather came to the United States from Lacedonia, Italy in 1900. He lived in East Harlem and worked digging the subway tunnels for the Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT). Then, he opened up a small grocery store, which I imagine felt like an above ground wonderland of opportunity.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Today, epidemiologists are able to make predictions about infectious disease dynamics based on viral transmission rates, environmental variables and underlying host genetics. But what they cannot predict, with a mathematical model, is the magnitude of personal loss that this will cause. And the time it will take to heal. <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">These invisible organisms, not even classified as living, are tearing us apart.</span> Again. And emotional recovery is not simply a flattened curve.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">If I approach the current and emerging coronavirus data with a cool scientific head, it is scary. And when I don’t, it is immensely heartbreaking. Because numbers are people here, bar graphs are grandmothers and uncles and loved ones. Exponential curves are weeks of growing fear and anxiety followed by, well, we don’t know <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">what</span> yet.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">They couldn’t supply enough coffins, they tell me. My grandfather was a good student and when his father died in 1918 he had to leave school to work in his father’s grocery store. This was sad for him. And then, by some combination of smarts and grit that I cannot fathom, he went to night school, eventually went on to pharmacy school, then had a second career in law and became a Judge for the City of New York. And when he had his own family<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">,</span> he <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">intensely</span> over-protected them, because he never wanted them to feel left alone, like he felt.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">Now I live in Manhattan,</span> ten blocks south and a few avenues over from where the grocery store was. What am I doing here? I ask myself <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">at least once a week</span>. But lately, almost daily. The truth is, I have nowhere else to go. This is, by all measures, my home. And although this is an incredibly surreal and difficult time, I feel especially tied to this city through a lineage of grit and grief and almost-but-not-quite, glory.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">So, what can past pandemics can teach us? Is it that with enough time, grief can mutate into something else, like resilience? And how do we ready ourselves for the destabilizing days ahead that they tell us will come? For now: we wash our hands. We tell people we love them. We appreciate the rising of the sun and of the dough. We narrow our focus to the hours in one precious day. And we keep going, just like grandpa did.</span></span></div>
Juliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14336442215279529620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5910030358166052439.post-57593411714424462462020-03-21T11:31:00.000-04:002020-03-21T16:43:21.292-04:00There is More To Admire Than to Despise I <i>almost</i> want to hear something explode. Instead, I hear a hollow distant air in this usually bustling Manhattan neighborhood. But the quiet is not peace, because I know that everything is coming apart. Fear is ravenously enveloping us, while a profound despair slowly descends. It’s like an invisible storm that will steal our months, our work, our loved ones, and even ourselves. It is a darkness we have had the privilege to never know. We have read books about trying times—wars, diseases, heartaches—only to put the book down and have another cookie. Only now, we cannot put the book down, and there are no cookies left because we ate them all yesterday.<br />
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As recent as the beginning of last week, we were collectively innocent, going about our days sighing, joking, complaining, loving. Taking for granted the daily workings of our normal little lives. Now, the only thing most of us can do is stay inside and go on existing, puttering around our homes pretending the world as-we-knew-it is not ending.<br />
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So, in an effort to extract out the particulates of hope, here’s to the simple things that bring a new kind of joy now:<br />
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Here’s to the glorious morning sunshine which resets us to the mode of irrational hope, to the hard wringing of the mop, to very long warm showers and voraciously blooming houseplants. To the rising dough, and the swirl of milk in our teas and coffees. To music, which is almost as good as the sun. Here’s to the dust which gave me something to clean for days, to the recipes that rose from the dead, to my oven that works despite years of neglect, to the half-read books calling around me, to the friends that always make me laugh. Hell, here’s to lying awake at night with anxious half-headed epiphanies. Here’s to the 7 lemons I am hoarding in my fridge to make things seem fresh, even when they are canned. Here’s to the birds that chirp and fly around without knowing anything of the darkness. Here’s to email and FaceTime and texting and social media. Here’s to all the Words-With-Friends games I am losing. Here’s to hand soap and hummus and the many hugs that will come again some day. I love it all, with a new kind of love which is standing just as tall as pain.<br />
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<b><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">“<span style="background-color: white;">What we learn in time of </span><span style="background-color: white;">pestilence</span><span style="background-color: white;">: <i>t</i></span><i>here are more things to admire in people than to despise</i>” -- Albert Camus, “The Plague”</span></b><br />
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<br />Juliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14336442215279529620noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5910030358166052439.post-49161513618534111662020-03-01T17:24:00.002-05:002020-03-21T12:25:36.922-04:00I Aloe New York It sat at the back of the design studio, just after the row of computers but before the kitchen. Right were it could be ignored most. It was as dry as a tumbleweed, but it never went anywhere. I always assumed someone else was taking care of it. Everyone thought that.<br />
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This large and leggy light green aloe plant was crunchy dry dead-as-a-doornail in the center, but miraculously green and turgid at the tips. It grew in a way where it threw out little versions of itself fully formed, but separate. It was not one plant. It was a collective. And it never seemed to really need the soil very much.<br />
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I worked in this design studio for six years. With the plant. It was my first real job out of college. And because of that, and my particular personality, my coworkers became like a surrogate family for me. And we all ignored the plant together. Over coffee.<br />
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At some point I became interested in something else entirely. I didn’t leave design right away, but I started volunteering at a genetics lab. One day I brought a small piece of the aloe plant to the lab. My scientist boss and I spread out newspaper on the ground and repotted this smaller piece in a very large pot. It had a lot of room, which signaled the great hope we had for it. And grow it did. It flourished and multiplied and practically burst into song. It eventually outgrew the pot. I haven’t seen it in many years now. But I still wonder how it is doing.<br />
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After the lab, I worked at a museum. When I first started working at the museum I remember telling people that I wanted to bring in a piece of my aloe to keep us company. to give us something living and green around us. But I never had an office with a window. And I never quite had the time, or the heart, to bring it there then. So I didn’t.<br />
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I also brought many pieces of the plant home and today they are still growing in 5 different pots in my kitchen. I have given pieces to dear friends. One friend broke it while traveling back on the subway with it. Another friend had a too curious cat so she moved it far away from him. One piece is even making the best of it in Boston and growing steadily at a friend’s home there. It is the epitome of resilient, but it isn’t terribly attractive. And sometimes its sections grow awkwardly like several offset green hands with more than five fingers. It takes well to neglect. And it never asks for anything. ever.<br />
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The building where the design studio was located has just been sold. Everyone we love is moving out or already gone. I went back this week—almost 20 years after I started working there—to say goodbye. I looked for the plant. I asked about the plant. It was nowhere to be found. And no one knew or recalled absolutely anything about it. If I didn’t have the evidence still growing in my kitchen I may have wondered if it ever even existed.<br />
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I love this plant as a symbol of growth, of movement, of resilience and for being a backdrop to continuous professional and personal change. It is a living trail of human connections, and many little green futures. Where will it grow next I wonder?<br />
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<br />Juliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14336442215279529620noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5910030358166052439.post-34909979879794495922019-10-29T09:09:00.002-04:002019-10-29T12:26:05.843-04:00Cooped up and Loving it Now I spend most of my days at home, putting the finishing touches on Power Point lectures about <i>Homo erectus</i> or population genetics. It’s pretty wonderful. But some days my aloneness starts to mutate and I get a little freaked out about odd noises I hear outside, or when someone calls my secret landline in the middle of the day. But then...<br />
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It usually starts with a soft scratch-rattle on metal sound. Then I see their gently bobbing silhouettes. The pigeons love to spend time on top of my air conditioner. This explains the downy feather or two I sometimes find on my apartment floor. I am fully blossoming into a cooped up half-crazy New Yorker now - loving and appreciating the pigeons in a new light.<br />
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I am thankful for their visits, which punctuate days upon days spent in my head. I act surprised every time I see them, even though I know they come regularly. And they are so beautiful. Some with white streaks of tail feathers among the grey, others that indescribable mauve color combination which seems like a painter’s muddy palette that accidentally turned out gorgeous. They are so damn dirty and humble, and I bet they have no idea how pretty their own tail feathers look to the world. They shuffle and coo and fly back and forth between my air conditioner and the building across the street.<br />
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Yesterday, a few not-quite-spectacular clouds streaked the sky, and the sun cast an incredibly slight orangey-pink on them. Not an Instragam-worthy sunset, just one of those everyday skies. And against that sky, two pigeons perched on the top edge of a building, little grey beating hearts, investigating, resting, marching and then resting again. <br />
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<br />Juliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14336442215279529620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5910030358166052439.post-16251347432537591672019-06-08T11:51:00.002-04:002019-07-17T11:28:17.532-04:00A Blazer Without A Spark They sat there in a big pile, of seven or eight, all dark and overly serious for no good reason. Like a group of disappointed lawyers. No joy was to be sparked. In fact, they elicited a slow growing horror.<br />
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No one told me to wear only blue and black blazers to work for years. and years. some with shoulder pads to make me appear bigger (and subsequently more 80’s). some without. But all of them dark. and now mostly smelly from sweat from this or that situation where I was nervous.<br />
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Maybe a part of me was channeling my old high school principal, a Catholic nun, who wore only blue, and didn’t like anything <a href="https://whatglows.blogspot.com/2010/07/blue-voodoo.html" target="_blank">but</a>.<br />
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The thing is, I get cold. but I am also small. and I think I started wearing them because I wanted to be seen as an authority, on something, so blazers always felt like the perfect costume for that charade. Turns out, no one takes me seriously anyway, the armpits are sweaty, and scientists don’t dress like that. But whoever tells you that clothes are not important is not correct. Especially in New York. You could feel personally liberated from the tyranny of fashion, but you will still be judged. Your values hang from your shoulders, cover your butt, and show with every step—whether you intend it or not.<br />
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The conundrum is, my blazers do provide physical warmth, in a building where the temperature is set for a fat man. Which I am not. But what kind of warmth do they provide? Not like a warm comfy blanket, or a favorite soft sweater. The kind that comes out of an exhaust pipe, or a pile of burning tires.<br />
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And they end up signaling a kind of conservatism, a sheep-like following even, and respect for crusty old ways. A staying in your lane. They may have done more harm than good for me. I am afraid. What would have happened if I just wore a bunch of fuzzy sweaters or flowy ponchos instead? I would probably make less money, and be invited to fewer meetings and events. Which would be. just fine.<br />
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So, the blazers ended up being a kind of cotton-poly-tweed-blended armor. But they really only protected me from myself. They stifled a wildfire within me. a fire of irreverent ideas, personal warmth, and radical passions. Who would I be if I never wore another blazer again? I know <i>exactly</i> who I would be. I would be: <i>me</i>.<br />
<br />Juliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14336442215279529620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5910030358166052439.post-18294849265824088322019-05-29T17:26:00.002-04:002019-05-30T11:24:42.958-04:00Loving, Leaving, and Losing my Science I never anticipated writing this. And I never wanted to. But I have to.<br />
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I did a dramatic career change—like a take-the-wheel-of-the-sailboat-in-a-windstorm and turn it clear 180º—change. You don’t do something like that, unless you feel <i>very</i> strongly. Which I did. It wasn’t easy, my new path. It fact, it almost downright broke me. But I finished what I set out to do, on that leg of the trip at least. I earned my Ph.D., I got a job, and I even published. And I was, for at least 15 years, drinking the Kool-Aid, as they say.<br />
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My new job was exciting, in a great place, and it allowed me to share my enthusiasm for science with large and diverse populations of students and visitors eager to engage and learn. It was an amazing opportunity. I still work where I did, but I no longer engage with visitors much. and I am mostly sitting in meetings talking about talking about science, and not actually even talking about science. For a while, that made me sad. Even though I know that, in some vague general sense, I am still doing what I set out to do, working towards educating people about the science that I love.<br />
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Until one day recently, I fell out of love. And I can’t tell if a cloud has lifted, or newly descended on me. But I feel different. A series of smaller events led to this, one of which was realizing that their are many people out there practicing science who are “in it ” in a way that I am just. not. anymore. no matter how hard I try. I am now a peripheral administrator, where my scientific skills are seen as a funny little quirk at best, and a nuisance at worst, to those around me in my department. But I am tired of fighting.<br />
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And more severely, I can’t remember what I am fighting for. Why is science, and exploring and understanding the natural world, so damn great anyway? Because some old British dude several centuries ago told us the world changes, and then species change, and we have been lionizing him for years? And really, why should we encourage anyone to be a natural scientist? So, you work your butt off, but then cannot get a decent job, and you are working as an adjunct with no health insurance? Where does your love of bats, birds and snakes leave you now? It’s hard to explore the natural world, when you have no money. And further, its just a goddamn privilege to do this kind of work. As in, you are privileged if you can. <i>Extremely</i>.<br />
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And what then, are we doing, guiding students and visitors into some kind of butterfly covered fantasyland where people can sit around and think and hike and collect specimens and write about it? What false hope are we selling here? That doesn’t pay the bills. And more importantly, it is just a value system. One that I have been blindly following for years, because I thought it was beautiful, and virtuous, and I liked something of the romance of it. So it held meaning for me.<br />
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But it is not important for many people to know about these things, let alone care, or pursue natural science and evolution as a field of study. No matter how many times we say “learning about the past teaches us about the future”, or “evolution is happening all around us”, it still is just not a day-to-day necessity. It’s like a gorgeous painting. Something to esthetically enjoy, if you have the chance, and the luxury of doing so.<br />
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We worked with at-risk youth, they came to us, and we taught them about Neanderthals. They are struggling in high school. But what can Neanderthals teach them that they can use in their every day lives? Imagine that your grades are shitty, everyone is pissed at you, and your friends suck too -- but let’s learn about “what makes us human”, because that’s really going to save you. No. it’s not. It just isn’t. and I feel almost sick thinking that I thought it might “be good for them” in some way. It’s not even on their high school curriculum. Not even close.<br />
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But I suppose it’s just like anything, a benign distraction from the pain of every day life. A Neanderthal might as well be a blooming peony, or a glass of wine. It’s just something to pass the time and focus on, in between deciding what to eat, or where to sleep, or who to love.<br />
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And in the last few years, there is a big emphasis on attracting diverse and new audiences to science. I have two issues with this: one is that it is easy to say, but putting this into practice means letting go of old ways of doing things (which I am all in support of), but I am just not sure that science is ready for that, its all its manifestations. After all, it is a club (of sorts) with rules both written and unwritten. And I think people underestimate how much they cling to, and subscribe to these “club rules” as part of their identity as scientists. What about letting that all go? and letting people really do things and think things in entirely new ways?<br />
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And secondly, diverse audiences, who may be new to science as a career possibility—have we ever asked them, do you really want to be a part of this anyway? aren’t we making an assumption that people even want to be part of this nerdy, half-way-to-loser, club anyway. And, in all seriousness and peak blossom of my current crisis: what <i>is</i> the actual point of this anyway?<br />
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And now. just. like. that. I have nothing to love. and not Paranthropus, or <i>Pan paniscus,</i> or even a starling can save me now I am afraid. I am a shell where science-love formerly lived.Juliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14336442215279529620noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5910030358166052439.post-32250325672685421922018-11-21T20:03:00.001-05:002018-11-22T07:18:27.771-05:00Invisible Woman I have lived in my apartment building since March of 2002, it is now November 2018. No one my age in New York City stays in one place as long as I have. I am here because of the rent, and the warm morning light, and strong water pressure, and close proximity to my work. I am also here in spite of the two mice fighting and squeaking in the middle of my kitchen floor, and the giant cockroach that sauntered onto my yoga mat that one time I tried to meditate. My building as 5 floors, I am on the 4th. It has 4 apartments on each floor and no elevator. The further you go up, the tougher the people are for walking up the stairs day after every damn day with groceries, with laundry, with a new something silly but feel-good from Home Goods. It is not perfect. But sometimes it is.<br />
<br />
I have had the same landlord for 16 years. George. He is someone I have known for a long time, but at the same time, not known. He has unclogged my tub with his bare hands. He has told me there is nothing he can do. He has probably saved me from things I don't even realize he did. This past week George sold our apartment building. He had owned it for 38 years. Now what?<br />
<br />
George invited the people in the building out to dinner this week. I went to dinner and sat across from people who I have walked by in the tiny pre-war spiral hallways day after day after day. When they sat down for dinner, they asked me where I live. Then they told me they didn't recognize me. Three separate people told me this. It is so weird. It is so New York.<br />
<br />
I love it here.Juliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14336442215279529620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5910030358166052439.post-39940922524017259232017-06-03T14:19:00.000-04:002017-06-13T21:02:21.344-04:00in pursuit of peanut butter “Welcome to a life of the mind”, were the words from our University President upon my entrance to graduate school, which felt both corny and inspiring.<br />
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During graduate school I knew that I would miss the days of sitting around thinking deeply about evolution. Days of scribbling down <i>wild</i> ideas, confusing myself, days of re-re-reading articles, and the gentle roiling angst that comes with doing/what-am-I-doing science. But I couldn’t appreciate it. </div>
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Having earned your Ph.D. means a very specific thing. It means you have your Ph.D. It means you came up with an original idea, read the related literature carefully, collected new data (in some cases), wrote about it for more pages than will likely ever be read, and your scholarship was approved by experts in the field. But it also means something else. </div>
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It means that throughout this process of idea generation and pursuit you have developed a habit of mind, that you cannot lose. You can never just read one article on a new topic again and purport to <i>know</i> about it, because behind each piece of knowledge lies a vastness and complexity and nuance that one cannot wholly grasp, unless one <i>really, deeply, years-of-hard-work</i> knows it. It is an intense humbling. In this depth lies confusion, conflicting information, mistakes, and doubt that you have to wade through in order to find your particle of, dare I say, truth. And finding something that no one has before does not typically feel anything like eureka, it feels more like dipping your toe in a freezing cold body of water in the pitch black night; a creepy shiver at best. </div>
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I am acutely aware of not making others who don’t have this degree feel inadequate. People get weird about it honestly. Sometimes people immediately start telling me about their plans for graduate school, which feels less like a conversation, and more of a confession. Other times people puff up and pontificate in order to assert their knowledge. I didn’t ask for that. I do not want to make people uncomfortable. So, I have taken to not telling people most of the time, because I don’t want the weirdness. I believe that many minds have something to offer, and the quality of someone’s ideas is not equivalent to their schooling. The quality of ideas is equivalent to the quality of the ideas, whether it comes from a 5th grader, or a distinguished professor.</div>
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But in my hiding, I have lost something. It’s turned into something that feels more like shame. This is my doing entirely, no one asked me to behave this way. I work with many non-academics around me, so this has something to do with it. It’s like I learned how to swim, but now I pretend I don’t know how: <b>why would anyone do that?</b> So, I am writing to remind myself that this degree <i>is</i> something. It is not nothing. It was transformative for me. And I am sorry if my own personal pursuit has scared you, or reminded you of your own failures, that was not my intention. I ate peanut butter for many years, and thought deeply about things most people don’t care about. And I am not sorry that I love both of those things. </div>
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Juliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14336442215279529620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5910030358166052439.post-73331486907871433102016-02-24T19:49:00.001-05:002016-02-25T09:41:15.722-05:00pools of coffee, waves of joyIt wasn’t raining. It also wasn’t sunny. It was an in-between blue-grey day.<br>
<br>
I paid. They handed it to me. As they passed the paper cup over the counter, it felt like slow-motion glory. I could not imagine wanting something more than I wanted the contents of that cup. It had a beautiful only-ness to it. My brain was soup. It was a haze, under-motivated to even zip up my jacket all the way. My hair was combed, but it looked uncombed. I no longer hated everyone for not respecting me for all the things I had done that they had no way of knowing about. I was too weak to hate. I reached out and grabbed it like a warm ring of gold, the holy grail, <i>to go</i>.<br>
<br>
I nodded and thanked them, more than they could know. I didn’t need my change. I apishly pulled that poorly-designed plastic tab. I pulled it so much. I pressed it back in its supposed divot. It popped up. I pressed it back again. Even though I knew things were uncertain, I went in for a sip. The plastic tab irreverently popped up again and scraped my eager lips. But I did not care. I could swear that I could feel it sparking and lighting through my brain like a trail of water through a desert dry for 1000 years.<br>
<br>
It was imperfect, but still good. I instantly felt strong and what I imagine normal to be like.<br>
<br>
My hand gripped the cup in earnest. So much so that a little empty spot above my wrist, framed by strained tendons, appeared because my hands are so bony. Into this space, the coffee pools. It jumps and sloshes while I walk. It pools in the temporary place in my hand that is only there because I am holding the cup. The cup and the space are a part of one another, dependents in a messy morning dance that I cannot hate, nor ever fully enjoy.Juliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14336442215279529620noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5910030358166052439.post-6467897071920945382014-11-20T21:53:00.001-05:002014-11-20T23:11:11.695-05:00The First Bird <!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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They arrived on a Wednesday, in a box labeled <i>honey baked
ham</i>. I rushed around teaching, meeting, and answering emails. The box sat. I
knew what was inside, but I needed time to open it. Time to carefully inspect
the cold little bodies inside. Time to respect their terminated lives. And I
wanted to be alone with them.</div>
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The box felt heavy and damp as I carried it. It was 12:14pm
when I arrived in the lab to unpack my precious frozen gift. My hands trembled.
I have been dreaming of their nuanced intraspecific diversity for many months.
Subtle differences between individuals of the same species will tell us something new. It’s
different than the great variation we see between wildly divergent species. It’s
quieter. Newer. </div>
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I pulled through two tightly knotted plastic bags. There
they were. In a heap, not a flock. In a pile, not a murmuration. One man’s
trash. I lifted the first bird. It’s neck was crooked, it’s eyes gently closed.
Dignified, even in death. Tawny brown head, it was a juvenile in its last
autumn plumage. I set it down in the afternoon sun. </div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-34uZwiSClzE/VG6nzHPn5iI/AAAAAAAAA9E/mIIp84Lyxgw/s1600/thefirstbird.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-34uZwiSClzE/VG6nzHPn5iI/AAAAAAAAA9E/mIIp84Lyxgw/s1600/thefirstbird.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a></div>
Juliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14336442215279529620noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5910030358166052439.post-75696719358768402532014-11-02T17:27:00.000-05:002014-11-02T20:24:26.018-05:00the bird that isn’t a bird <div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">“They are not considered birds, </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i>they are not considered birds</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">”, the ornithologist repeated. They are exempt from the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. You don’t need a permit to kill them. According to the IUCN Invasive Species Specialist Group, t</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">hey are one of the 100 worst invasive species in the world. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">European starlings in North America are reviled for their ecological, agricultural, and aeronautic troublemaking.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">In 1960, a flock of ~20,000 starlings caused one of the worst airplane bird strikes in history. During take-off the birds were ingested into the engine, causing power loss, and eventually a sideways crash. Sixty-two people were killed. Starlings wreak havoc on farms. They eat the most proteinaceous plant parts, meant for cows, which effects the quality of milk production. Their guano can transmit diseases such as histoplasmosis and <i>E.coli</i>. They also compete with native birds for nesting sites. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Wildlife control agencies end the lives of millions of starlings every year. These birds are killed creatively. They are trapped, gassed, poisoned, their cervical vertebrae dislocated. In 1890, when starlings first arrived in North America, their were no commercial airplanes, and many fewer cows. I wonder when they were first recognized as problematic? Perhaps not at the outset, allowing them time and space to properly invade. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">All of this is to say, we shouldn’t hate these birds. But we should be cautious not to love them either. No point in getting carried away about their beauty, gregarious nature, or skills of mimicry. That is the type of sentimental thinking that launched this invasion. But, from an evolutionary perspective, I think we have something serious to learn from our unwelcome guests. Their morphological, behavioral, and dietary adaptations are noteworthy. Their population expansion nothing short of astonishing. So, to understand some central concepts in evolutionary biology—variation within species, adaptation to novel environments, and reproductive success—it’s fitting that we turn to the starlings. Even stripped of the honor of being called a <i>bird</i>, and despised for legitimate reasons, </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">the starling still has scientific stories to tell. </span></div>
Juliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14336442215279529620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5910030358166052439.post-17539941204338476722014-10-26T21:00:00.001-04:002014-10-27T09:14:48.805-04:00something about starlings <br />
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It wasn’t until I reached my office, safe from the crowds, that I knew. I sat in my chair, and stared at my lifeless companions with a new respect. I felt pleasantly betrayed. I had no idea they would elicit that reaction. When museum visitors saw them, they whispered, and pointed, and grabbed. It was as if I was wheeling around miniature feathered rock stars. People wanted a piece of them. And badly.</div>
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Starlings arrived in New York City in 1890. Sixty individuals were released in Central Park as part of an effort to populate the park with each bird mentioned in Shakespeare’s plays. It was a wonderful, awful idea. Sentimentally driven, ecologically ignorant. Today there are ~200 million starlings in North America. This is not considered good. They are an invasive species; raiding crops, outcompeting native birds, and interfering with aircraft. Part of their success lies in their dietary flexibility. I once saw two starlings fighting over a piece of prosciutto on Columbus Ave. They were both holding it in their beaks. It was strung between them like a salty ribbon in an only-in-New-York Disney scene. They flapped, and pulled, and snapped. </div>
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<i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_starling" target="_blank">Sturnus vulgaris</a></i> are, what I would consider, beautiful birds. In spring and summer, they sport a striking iridescent radiance, paired with a shock of yellow beak. In fall and winter, they take on modest brown plumage, flecked with little light colored “stars”. The origin of their name. They are ubiquitous, and decidedly unspecial by ornithological standards. From an ecological perspective, they are downright hated. Starlings are remarkable for their boldness, not for their rarity. They flourish in urban environments throughout the world; Europe, South Africa, New Zealand. Starlings still live in Central Park today, and all around the museum, aggressively pecking at the grass and forming peaceful groups with their inelegant associates, the pigeons.</div>
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My four starlings were dead. Taxidermied specimens for education and research. Clustered together in silence on my rolling cart. Not singing, or flying, or behaving. I was walking through the Hall of Saurischian Dinosaurs. One of the most spectacular and impressive dinosaur exhibit halls in the world. But <i>T. rex</i> had nothing on my starlings. Nevermind that, evolutionarily, birds <i>are</i> avian dinosaurs, or that many starlings were alive and flourishing all over the museum lawn at that very moment. There is something about a specimen. The stillness. The oldness. The perceived specialness. But I think it was also a little about the birds too. One specimen was from winter, the other three summer. Spectacular in a kind of ordinary glory.</div>
Juliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14336442215279529620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5910030358166052439.post-38868286776896019902014-03-22T19:05:00.002-04:002014-04-19T14:15:09.335-04:00strong nothing <span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: 'trebuchet ms', verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; border-collapse: separate; color: #504f4f; font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 20px;"><b>This is the second post as part of new installment on my Blog called “Better Left Unsaid”, which consists of blog posts I wrote a long time ago but never published: </b></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: 'trebuchet ms', verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: 'trebuchet ms', verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Today was one of those days that didn’t evoke a particularly strong anything. So, I decided to force-feed myself all the ways that the day I was experiencing was actually great. But, alongside all the goody-goodness I could conjure, lurked equally valid reasons why the day stunk. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: 'trebuchet ms', verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Here they both are:</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: 'trebuchet ms', verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: 'trebuchet ms', verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">the GOOD-<br />sunny morning after days of rain.i dont have to wake up if i dont want to.no one is expecting me anywhere.the jasmine plant seems to be doing well.lingering over coffee.spent all morning puttering around the apartment.almost has the makings of a lazy sunday.Joe caught a fly with his bare hands last night, that fly had been bothering me for days.walked to the museum to complete a minor task.got my free pinkberry: original with chocolate chips.an excellent jazz duo, sax and bass, played at the corner.no one bothered me on my walk. the apartment looks great when it’s clean.i have nowhere to be.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: 'trebuchet ms', verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: 'trebuchet ms', verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">the BAD-<br />i told myself i would go running, but i never made it.the bath mat smells moldy.i do all the cleaning.the rubber gloves i bought for cleaning don’t fit.i almost stepped in finely smeared shit on the sidewalk.too many lazy sunday-ish days in a row lose their luster.the odor of the garbage truck almost made me heave.The fly that Joe caught with his bare hands last night was still alive in the garbage.i killed the fly by stepping on it, and it left its blood on the bottom of my slipper.i am still waiting for an email response about something i care about.getting a free pinkberry probably means i eat too much of it. i have nowhere to be.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: 'trebuchet ms', verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYEC4TZsy-Y">Perfect Day by Lou Reed</a></span>Juliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14336442215279529620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5910030358166052439.post-40457654447130117002014-02-24T20:05:00.004-05:002014-04-19T14:21:16.073-04:00Ode to Graduate School<b>This is part of a new installment on my Blog called “Better Left Unsaid”, which consists of blog posts I wrote a long time ago but never published, here goes: </b><br />
<br />
<i>Ode to Graduate School</i><br />
<br />
to the days of deep eternal questioning<br />
to the sloth of waking up when the morning glories have swirled shut<br />
to the luxury of sitting around thinking all day<br />
when other people are actively doing and making and helping and struggling and tired.<br />
<br />
to that microsecond when I tell a stranger what I do and I feel proud and interesting<br />
only to snap back into my pathetic state of uncertainty, and then shame.<br />
i dont have a real job<br />
i am a disgusting lazy drifter with the illusion of ambition<br />
hiding the filthy secret of waking up at noon<br />
pretending to care, deciding whether to wear the same shirt as yesterday.<br />
<br />
i sold my heart for a mind<br />
one that does not suit me<br />
can i go back to the way it was?<br />
millions of years ago<br />
before this pre-frontal cortex started<br />
making things up that aren’t real.<br />
is evolutionary thinking just a deep and<br />
enduring form of intellectual nostalgia?<br />
<br />
i have had so many theoretical adventures<br />
all without leaving my apartment<br />
but i want to go home again<br />
to the way it was before i knew<br />
to the way it was when i could still feel<br />
without worrying<br />
that what i am saying is<br />
biased and absurd and overwrought<br />
and filled with breezy, unexplainable goodness.Juliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14336442215279529620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5910030358166052439.post-24745827651641860602013-12-26T00:21:00.003-05:002014-04-19T14:23:27.001-04:00The Way ForwardThere is something to be said for slow, steady, plodding, gradual, progress. This is the way most science is done. Very few people can reinvent the wheel and reap the rewards that it enables. There is a lot of emphasis in our society on “thinking outside the box”. “Think different” you say? Well, what about thinking only very slightly differently, making it fit in with what we already know, and then releasing it to the world? Most progress is incremental. In many ways this gradual approach is more difficult than punctuated bursts of perceived brilliance because it requires background knowledge and working within constraints, but still emerging with something novel.<br />
<br />
Among my mother’s cadre of wise sayings is: “You don’t have to reinvent the wheel”. It was applied to everything from my wedding invitations to my dissertation topic.<br />
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Maybe in response to this, and in accord with the silly inspirational sayings like “think different” (of which I fell for like a fool), I have staged my share of petty rebellions. So much of my life has been in response to some kind of perceived oppressive force. It has gotten me nowhere really.<br />
<br />
As I race to finish my dissertation—which was meant to forge new ground, but essentially dug its own grave—I am reminded that reinventing the wheel is not always best the way forward. My Mom was right, again.Juliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14336442215279529620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5910030358166052439.post-89403599009592938222013-11-23T18:00:00.001-05:002014-04-19T14:23:50.021-04:00The Art of Interruption People are uncomfortable with silence. It’s too bad. So much thinking can be done in quietude. Not so, during active, empty, uncomfortable, rambling.<br />
<br />
I think it is impolite to interrupt people when they are talking. I feel a deep churn in my gut when I realize, that I simply have to.<br />
<br />
I love to listen. You can learn from listening, more than from talking. Layers of information, cloaked in social cues, sparkling with innuendos and thousands of years of biology and culture all terminating in the one wonderful and worthy star of a speaker.<br />
<br />
I should not lionize the speaker by listening so intently though. Most people are just talking shit. Saying nothing. Wanting to talk. Wanting to fill something that isn’t empty.<br />
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I am realizing that in professional meetings, no one invites silence. The only way to speak is to interrupt. It’s disgusting, but necessary. Can I gracefully interrupt? My first word has to overlap with your last or I will sit there like a modern unpainted mime, making you uncomfortable with my silence while you make me uncomfortable with your unbroken string of breathless thoughtless sounds.<br />
<br />Juliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14336442215279529620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5910030358166052439.post-44462991506552551182013-11-08T22:47:00.000-05:002014-04-19T14:24:46.041-04:00Homemade GypsyThere is something so sad and deeply painful about Halloween. The homemade costumes that reveal what you hide in your junk drawers and the half-baked ideas you have in your head, that nobody “gets”. All glued together as a patchwork of vulnerability, for the world to see. As a child, you want so hard to be something. That universal yearning is so sweet and innocent, I almost can’t stand to think about it. So your Mom makes it real. You find yourself at the mercy of her versions of your ideas, which are limited by her energy and time. Then, after hours of insisting for this particular scarf, and not that one, you put on a coat as you go off to trick-or-treat, and the whole thing is ruined and even more unclear. You are just <i>you</i> again, but poorly dressed.<br />
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As a young adult, on Halloween, you stand around at parties explaining to each newcomer what you are, pathetically, because it is not clear. Because you aren’t clear. Because you want to be something that you are not, and that no one is. Because it all seemed so magical when you birthed the idea, and now the foolishness rises slowly around you and fills the room. <br />
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As an adult, it is ok to be silly, and to wear a costume, but some manifestations of this are more uncomfortable than others. This year, Halloween has escaped me. My heart is not in it, or glued to my sleeve, it’s nowhere. I am sad because I miss something, but I can’t tell if it’s youth that I miss or being a homemade gypsy.Juliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14336442215279529620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5910030358166052439.post-73163816619393673132013-08-05T21:46:00.001-04:002013-08-20T21:57:03.664-04:00Common Ground “They have a wine tasting every SomethingDay over on 98th street.” “Oh I usually go to the one on 108th, which also has wine tasting.”<br />
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My thighs strained. I was wearing shorts, a backpack and carrying a black plastic liquor store bag. I was undignified. They caught me off guard, or something. I walked up the stairs past my neighbors conversation about local wine tasting. </div>
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I gave a smile that was undoubtedly bigger in mind than it was on my face. smirk. smurf. I meant to look friendly, but I am sure I was oozing rude white girl. </div>
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I keyed into my apartment, made my favorite cannellini bean surprise, olive oil, capers, the works. My favorite. </div>
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I opened the bottle of rosé.</div>
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As the screw spiraled down into the cork, I wondered. </div>
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I wondered how many people in my building were opening bottles of wine at the end of their days. At the same time. I wondered how it would be if we all opened the same bottle, together. </div>
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We clearly have things in common. We have lived in the same building for 10 years. We have the dry cleaners in common. We have the have man who yells “Glory, Hallelujah” repeatedly in common. The man with three pomeranians and a prosthetic leg, we all know him. We know our landlord is a slumlord (shhhh). And that someone smokes pot in the morning and its reprehensible, but that it smells good. </div>
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But then I remembered how nice it is to be alone at the end of stressful day and I imagined that we had that in common too. </div>
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Juliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14336442215279529620noreply@blogger.com0