A Lethe

6:30. Consciousness. The baby is wide awake and chattering.

8:00 Showering with my 2-year old. He busted the coffee pot with a single well-placed blow with a ceramic dessert dish last night. So today we go cold turkey.

9:00. Crap! I'm late to learn of a big story: Corporate Express has agreed to be bought by Staples. EUR9.25 per share but what's the full price? 182 million shares outstanding according to Euronext * EUR9.25 per share = EUR1.68 billion. Make it "Around EUR1.7 billion." Why, after numerous attempts, am I not on the Corporate Express email list? On the bright side, it will never matter again after today.

10:00 CORRECTION! Staples' press release says the purchase price was EUR3.1 billion. They outta know, it's their money. That's cost plus debt. No breakdown, but that appears to be an awful lot of debt CE is carrying.

11:00. To office, to office, jiggety jig.
Amsterdam is beautiful.


12:00 Bureaucracy. What's the price on Corporate Express? Company says 185 million shares outstanding * EUR9.25 per share = EUR1.71 billion. And EUR1.09 billion in debt. But that's still just EUR2.8 billion. EUR300 million has gone missing.

13:00 London and New York like the idea of a story on how coffee shops will be affected by a smoking ban. It's scheduled for next week, no backing out now. Also, no word on what happened to that Koolhaas feature I turned in 2 weeks back.

14:00 A co-worker gets bad personal news. No time to talk, I have to leave Amsterdam *right now* and head for The Hague. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's right hand man Motjtaba Hashemi Samareh is doing Q&A with reporters. Ride with the photographer, he's got a motorcycle, it's quicker. I'm getting too fat and old for riding on the back of motorcycles.



15:00-17:30. The Iranian Embassy is a very civilized place for a talk about Iran's confrontation with the West over nuclear power.

I have trouble pronouncing the name Ahmadinejad. I laugh privately to myself about the idea of asking Samareh whether Iran has considered trying to get the Olympic Games to Tehran, to improve its image.

(Samareh .. he had something of Ed Norton in his grin)

I don't know as much about the situation as I would like, let alone as much as I should.

The press conference drags on and on. I "reject" five phone calls while Samareh speaks. He carefully avoids direct answers to direct questions, and invokes national pride and a feeling of justice when explaining why Iran is so determined to enrich uranium even if it harms the country's economy and international standing.

He says:
"I have a question for YOU: is having access to nuclear energy good or not? If it's good why shouldn't others have it? If it's wrong, why do you have it?"

(An anecdote ... in short, even the school children in Iran are singing songs about the importance of nuclear power. It's a matter of national pride, so he says. The sound quality is terrible. Once again, I realize I need a better video camera).

17:30 Start walking through diplomatic neighborhood to tram to train to bike to home. Trouble with computer on train. Woman asks me not to play recording of Samareh out loud. Work with earphones on. Paris has taken over the Iran story, send Samareh quotes through to them. My dad calls. An editor still wants to know about Corporate Express's purchase price. Leave messages with Corporate Express and Staples.

1830: Amsterdam is beautiful as always.


1900: My dad wants to talk details about our upcoming family vacation. Two children are crying when I walk in the door.

1930: Corporate Express and Staples call back. Neither can explain the purchase price in a way that makes sense. But Staples says there are 200 million shares outstanding * EUR9.25 per share = EUR1.85 billion. And the real number including debt is EUR3.06 billion: they rounded up to EUR3.1 billion in the press release. We're closing the gap!
Corporate Express says perhaps the debt figure is higher for Staples to buy than it is on CE books _ hmmm.
Staples denies that. Certainty may elude us on this today.
I think we're best off just sticking with the EUR3.1 billion figure we had in the first place.

2000: "Quality time" with the kids. My daughter has learned to grab her feet. My coworker calls to further explain bad personal news. Sympathize, briefly. A contradiction in terms? I dine on chips and candy bars I swiped randomly from a "party bowl" left out at our office yesterday.

20:30: A lawyer I left a message with days ago, Liesbeth Zegveld, calls out of the blue to talk about the Srebrenica hearings next week. What Srebrenica hearings? Civil suit against the Dutch government seeking compensation for failing to protect Bosnian Muslims during the fall of Srebrenica in 1995. The lawyer explains there are two totally different cases, Monday and Wednesday. Local hire employees on Monday, class action suit for 'civilans' on Wednesday. The U.N. and the Dutch government are accused in both. Dutch gov't is protesting jurisdiction. Why not go after the Bosnian Serbs, they were the ones who did the killing, I ask the lawyer. (Answer: deep pockets. And Dutch voluntarily subject themselves to the rule of law). She claims juridical shennanigans by Dutch Justice. I can't vet those kind of claims well from where I sit. We talk for nearly 45 minutes. I'm glad she called. Next week is going to be hell.

21:30: My wife announces she's going to bed. That prompts a marital debriefing.

22:00 My wife goes to bed. "My" time begins.

22:30 Idea for blog post germinates and is rapidly brought to fruition. In theory this day shall not be forgot. Yet all shall be forgot...

23:30 Check Facebook, answer emails, then bed. Hope I can sleep.

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Queens' Day 2008 / Koninginnedag

(Too cool for school)



The rest of the world spun along its merry way today, but in Holland it was Queens' Day.

 

(Tiejgetje)

Queens'Day (or is that Queensday in English? from 'Koninginnedag') is the celebration of the birthdays of Queens Juliana (RIP) and Beatrix.

A combination booze-fest, garage sale and the 4th of July. It's traditional to wear orange.

 

(he eventually got back up)

After the "More" are some photos and a couple of clips I took in Amsterdam.


(The grass is always greener on the other side of a boat)

 

(Amused or Annoyed?)

 

(Frickin heap of junk)

(Culture clash)

(Regal dame)

(Godspell)





(Milkbreath)

(Fox Force Four)

(Queensdog)

(Compliments were a quarter, so I bought two)

(Pinocchio?)



(Orange streaks)

(Dutch cops)

(the bitter end; photo by Mara Miller).





(Sterling and Son)

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Fatherhood, again

Since this is a semi-public diary, it's also a semi-private diary. To quote Tweedledee (or was it Tweedledum?): that's logic!

And in that spirit, dear readers, I present to you one of the first known photographs of my daughter, A. Zola Sterling, born Monday.

Long may she run!

When I was registering her birth this afternoon, I received the following package from the city of Amsterdam; one can never begin too early with city marketing, apparently.



After the more: a Dutch-only joke.



De vrouw achter de balie gaf mij het pakketje aan en zei "voor de nieuwe inburger."

Freudian slip?
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Tambourine Man

So. This time a highbrow look at the lyrics of one of those Dylan songs that you maybe kind of liked once, before you heard it played too many times.

Maybe you thought the lyrics were some annoying psychedelic BS but the song was okay, at least in the "Byrds" version, and who really cares about song lyrics anyway, right?

Well, I'd say, go ahead and hate "Tambourine Man" for being overplayed, but don't doubt this: the lyrics are getting at something very specific, and I think they're sublime once you understand what it is.

(clip)

Here's my close reading:

Dylan is asking the one who really makes the music _ call him The Tambourine Man, Dionysus, God, or the Muse, whatever you want _ to possess him.

This is a peek into the creative process of someone who is universally acknowledged as a master songwriter. Sometimes you wonder where he got all the ideas: in this song he more or less says he can't really take credit for what it is that he does.

Everyone knows the famous first verse/chorus:

Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me.
I'm not sleepy and there is no place I'm going to.
Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me,
In the jingle jangle morning I'll come followin' you.

This intro is the exact equivalent of the beginning of Homer's Illiad: the invocation to the muse: the "Tambourine Man," (not the 'Sandman' or the 'Pusher Man', as I think many people interpret the lyrics).



Dylan himself is pretty much erased from the picture. His senses are gone, he's so tired he's past sleeping, it's early morning, his fingers barely feel the strings, and he's begging to be released from what remains of his consciousness and just go under the 'dancing spell.'

Take me on a trip upon your magic swirlin' ship,
My senses have been stripped, my hands can't feel to grip,
My toes too numb to step, wait only for my boot heels
To be wanderin'.
I'm ready to go anywhere, I'm ready for to fade
Into my own parade, cast your dancing spell my way,
I promise to go under it.

In Plato's Ion, Socrates drops his famous Q&A for a minute and gives his explanation of how poetry is created. It runs something like this ('Jowett' translation:)

The gift which you possess ... is not an art, but ... an inspiration. There is a divinity moving you, like that contained in the stone which Euripides calls a magnet ... This (magnet) not only attracts iron rings, but also imparts to them a similar power of attracting other rings...all of them derive their power of suspension from the original stone.
In like manner the Muse first of all inspires men herself..For all good poets ... compose their beautiful poems not by art, but because they are inspired and possessed.
And as the Corybantian revellers when they dance are not in their right mind, so the lyric poets are not in their right mind when they are composing their beautiful strains: but when falling under the power of music and metre they are inspired and possessed; like Bacchic maidens who draw milk and honey from the rivers when they are under the influence of Dionysus but not when they are in their right mind. And the soul of the lyric poet does the same, as they themselves say; ... For the poet is a light and winged and holy thing, and there is no invention in him until he has been inspired and is out of his senses ... when he has not attained to this state, he is powerless and is unable to utter his oracles.
In this way, the God would seem to indicate to us ... that these beautiful poems are not ... the work of man, but divine and the work of God; and that the poets are only the interpreters of the Gods by whom they are severally possessed.

Once you've got the idea, the rest of the lyrics fall into place and don't need much interpretation.

Though you might hear laughin', spinnin', swingin' madly across the sun,
It's not aimed at anyone, it's just escapin' on the run
And but for the sky there are no fences facin'.
And if you hear vague traces of skippin' reels of rhyme
To your tambourine in time, it's just a ragged clown behind,
I wouldn't pay it any mind, it's just a shadow you're
Seein' that he's chasing.

Dylan is the ragged clown. He warns the Tambourine Man not to be distracted as the mortal behind him tries to keep pace with the song. But of course, Dylan won't ever quite be able to behold the Muse directly, he has to chase after its shadow, that's as much as humans can comprehend of the divine.

(Chorus)

Then take me disappearin' through the smoke rings of my mind,
Down the foggy ruins of time, far past the frozen leaves,
The haunted, frightened trees, out to the windy beach,
Far from the twisted reach of crazy sorrow.

Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free,
Silhouetted by the sea, circled by the circus sands,
With all memory and fate driven deep beneath the waves,
Let me forget about today until tomorrow.

Amazing imagery. Dylan will have to sacrifice all that makes him individual in order to experience the rapture.
Once he loses himself "with all memory and fate driven deep beneath the waves" he'll be all the way in the creative trance state.

Of course, that means he'll be part of the song, not a performer performing it, but part of the Bacchanal.

After he sleeps maybe a few glimpses of what he saw while dancing with Dionysus on the circus sands will come back to him; that's what's he handed down to us, the next link in Socrates's magnetized chain of rings.

(The photos are of my son, who succumbed totally to Bacchus during our vacation when he was exposed to a techno version of "Bolero" at full volume. It was pretty humorous...).

Full lyrics to "Tambourine Man":

Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me,
I'm not sleepy and there is no place I'm going to.
Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me,
In the jingle jangle morning I'll come followin' you.

Though I know that evenin's empire has returned into sand,
Vanished from my hand,
Left me blindly here to stand but still not sleeping.
My weariness amazes me, I'm branded on my feet,
I have no one to meet
And the ancient empty street's too dead for dreaming.

(chorus)

Take me on a trip upon your magic swirlin' ship,
My senses have been stripped, my hands can't feel to grip,
My toes too numb to step, wait only for my boot heels
To be wanderin'.
I'm ready to go anywhere, I'm ready for to fade
Into my own parade, cast your dancing spell my way,
I promise to go under it.

(chorus)

Though you might hear laughin', spinnin', swingin' madly across the sun,
It's not aimed at anyone, it's just escapin' on the run
And but for the sky there are no fences facin'.
And if you hear vague traces of skippin' reels of rhyme
To your tambourine in time, it's just a ragged clown behind,
I wouldn't pay it any mind, it's just a shadow you're
Seein' that he's chasing.

(chorus)

Then take me disappearin' through the smoke rings of my mind,
Down the foggy ruins of time, far past the frozen leaves,
The haunted, frightened trees, out to the windy beach,
Far from the twisted reach of crazy sorrow.
Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free,
Silhouetted by the sea, circled by the circus sands,
With all memory and fate driven deep beneath the waves,
Let me forget about today until tomorrow.

(chorus)

*end*


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Social Networks

(photo of an amusing trio on an Amsterdam park bench)

I'm getting a lot of messages from people on "social networks" like Facebook lately.

Stating the obvious: the basic problem with social networks is that half of your friends/colleagues/family are on one, half are on the other and the other half don't use social networks. And the other half can't do math.

Just as one example, everybody in the Netherlands uses a service called "Hyves," (no seriously, that's its name. It's like having automatic insurance the network never spreads to the English speaking world built-in).

MySpace is a train wreck in terms of loading speed and the flashing cutesy crap, Facebook is better but also getting too 'busy' with all the applications, and LinkedIn is a little sinister in the way it tries to make you feel like you're "missing out" professionally if you're not expanding your network. And of course I know there are many more, including aggregators, etc. There's even one for models and beautiful people (?) apparently being launched by some people I knew back at Henry M. Gunn high school, which may or may not mean the whole idea of social networking has jumped the shark.

Somebody needs to set this straight. What I'm saying is, whoever figures out how to make it so you can post EASILY to all your networks at once, and review the messages at your various networking accounts at once, is going to make a mint. Sorry, I mean: make the world a better place.



Sometimes I wonder if "social networking" couldn't just be done with a combination of personal websites and email.

This guy ("Brad Fitzpatrick") explains it all here in semi-technical terms. He appears to have the resume to know what he's talking about.

Plus he links to some of the places where people are working on solving the problem.

Godspeed, Brad, and please don't name the social networking "solution" something like "Shyngles" or "Pyles."
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Obama Obeisance

Any candidate who dreams of the presidency knows that a visit to my father is necessary. They kiss his hands, they bring a small gift. But dad keeps his own counsel, and gives no public endorsements.

Actually, my father said he attended a fundraiser with an open mind about which candidate he's likely to vote for in 2008.

Surprisingly, given that this was an event you'd think would be populated mostly by supporters, the first question from the audience was an aggressive critique of Obama's position on some topic (I fear healthcare). My dad said Obama acquitted himself admirably, answering the arguments point by point.

Still, no endorsement from Don Sterling.

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Photo

This is a photo of me and my son Zephyr. MORE

Primus

Hi all. It's been several years now since I began sending a monthly letter to my close friends and family. It was a way of keeping the people who have played an important part in my life up to date on my doings and undoings.

Now I'd like to keep a less private record of generally what's going on with me _ the life of the mind, including thoughts about my work, and occassional glimpses into my private life.

There's not really any way of keeping things totally separated. There never was, but in this day and age that's more apparent.

At any rate, I'm hoping the blog format will set the hurdle lower for people I know well to communciate with me, and people I should know to introduce themselves.

Positive and negative commentary is welcome, but I reserve the right to censor the scurrilous.

Click here for the most recent post... MORE