Part of the New Challenge

Today: Starbucks, Grand Central, Shake Shack, new friends, parks, lots of walking, nice views, Google maps failures, nice dinner, drunkeness.

Person

I spent the entire day with three fabulous Binghamton hackers: Akshay, Carly, and Dan. Carly has an apartment in Manhattan (West Village), and she gave us a tour of several parts of the city - SoHo & the West Village, Washington Square Park, Union Square Park, High Line, and the World Trade Center (& memorial). We talked about topics all over the map (with a special emphasis on good food in New York).

Food/Drink

Today, I had the fast food gem of the northeast - Shake Shack. Portobello mushroom and cheese, coated and deep-fried, resting on a bed of lettuce, tomato, and mayo, and nested within a soft, buttery bun. OMG. Also, a chocolate shake. I cannot describe the happiness. However, I did feel pretty fat for the rest of the day.

Music

Today’s song comes from the electro-swing playlist I was listening to on the subway ride from Brooklyn to Manhattan. If you’re not into electro-swing yet, you’re about to be. Definitely my favourite genre of all time. This particular mix is just - yum. It samples a couple tracks that I remember from the Monopoly PC game back in the early 2000s, which was basically my first taste of New York, so it feels particularly vintage New York-y to me. (Side note: the street/metro names are monopoly spaces. LOL. I guess they had to come from somewhere.)

Swing Mood (Castaman Edit Mix)

Anyone know of any cool electroswing clubs in NYC? I know it’s big in Montreal - some of my best nights out have been swinging.

Reading

This poem was sent to me by Collin this morning. I’ll include the whole text, because I think it’s beautiful:

All through that Sunday afternoon
a kite flew above Sunday,
a tightened drumhead, an armful of blown chaff.

I’d seen it grey and slippy in the making,
I’d tapped it when it dried out white and stiff,
I’d tied the bows of newspaper
along its six-foot tail.

But now it was far up like a small black lark
and now it dragged as if the bellied string
were a wet rope hauled upon
to lift a shoal.

My friend says that the human soul
is about the weight of a snipe,
yet the soul at anchor there,
the string that sags and ascends,
weigh like a furrow assumed into the heavens.

Before the kite plunges down into the wood
and this line goes useless
take in your two hands, boys, and feel
the strumming, rooted, long-tailed pull of grief.
You were born fit for it.
Stand in here in front of me
and take the strain.

Kites, as a representation of life. I don’t think I can remember the last time I flew one, myself. I’ll have to make a point of doing that soon.

Picture

We were walking along the river at sunset. ‘Nuff said.


Writing

I said I’d give you 100 words, so here’s over 100 words on all the walking I did today:

I like cities. One of the biggest draws - accessibility. Today, I took a walk across a good part of NYC. As much as I love public transit (expect another post soon), walking gives a unique perspective. Every shop, every person, and every block is a new experience that you can choose to pass by or to stop, and experience. Entire trajectories can be changed by taking a few turning steps. Sure, it’s tiring, but it gives you new abilities - cutting through parks and buildings. My feet definitely have some blisters today, but getting to see the city block-for-block is more than worth it.

Code

Today, I set up the drafts functionality on Jekyll, which allowed me to test this post before giving it to all of you. You can always check out this blog’s code on github.

Tomorrow: I have no idea. Maybe brunch?