I did a live interview on NPR's Talk of the Nation yesterday. The best part of the interview was that they had Bob Edwards, Robert Siegel, Melissa Block, and Carl Kassel do pre-recorded readings of Honku poems on-air. They sounded great. And what an honor. Do you know how much people pledge to NPR just to have Carl Kassel leave the outgoing message on their voicemail?! The readings are available online at this very nice web site whipped up by the NPR producers:

http://www.npr.org/display_pages/features/feature_1336382.html

Also, Random House announced yesterday that they were going to do a second print-run of the Honku book. Not bad. Hey, have you gotten one yet? I hear that it makes for a lovely gift.

7:05 PM | Link |   

I just got back from a week in Martha's Vineyard. The air and light on the Vineyard are beautiful and it was a really nice break from the honking and diesel gauntlet of Clinton and Court Streets. But all is not well on the Island. The big front page story of yesterday's Vineyard Gazette told of a huge, unprecedented die-off of about one million shellfish hatchlings in the Vineyard Lagoon. Apparently, for the first time that anyone can remember, the Lagoon is inhospitable to the growth of baby shellfish. One of the hatchery's employees said that because baby shellfish are the sensitive little guys at the bottom of the food chain, they are the "canaries in the coal mine" when it comes to the health of the Island's waters and environment.

With the weather as screwy as it's been, I've been keeping an eye on stories like these. In the last few months I've noticed a widening gap between European and American coverage of environmental issues. A European media source would have made more of an effort to connect the shellfish die-off to Cape Cod's unusual weather, the Island's rapid commercial development, the increase in automobile and boat traffic in and around the Lagoon, and other macro environmental issues. The Vineyard Gazette, like most other U.S. media sources, seems more concerned about reassuring the public that one million dead baby clams is no reason to stop visiting the Island and dining at the local restaurants. Keep in mind too that this is the paper of record of Martha's Vineyard's -- the last bastion of Chardonnay-sipping liberalism in the U.S.A. If we're not openly talking about environmental issues here, where are we talking about them?

Definitely not in the New York Times. During NYC's record-setting wet, gray months of May and June, Times coverage of the weather never went any deeper than the reportage we get from our helmet-haired Stepford local TV weathermen. The Times gave us stories on how the unusual weather is impacting New Yorkers' moods, businesses, and shopping habits. And they wrote an editorial criticizing the Bush Administration for deleting some language about global warming from an EPA report. But they refused to take the obvious next step and connect the two stories. Whenever a reporter delved into the complex (and potentially interesting) question of "why" the weather is acting so strangely, the answer was invariably because of a "low pressure system" or some other technical reason that only really described the symptom in a more abstract way. How hard would it have been? The Times could have gone and asked a conservative government source whether human activities (such as 20,000 Chevy Avalanches idling in traffic on the nation's freeways each day) have something to do with the freaky weather. The source would have said "no." The Times would have discharged its duty to the public. But they didn't bother even to do a bad story. Instead, the issue was confined to the pages of the Metro section, thus ensuring that it would be covered as a cute "weather" story rather than being covered as a national or international story about global climate change.

The discussion in the European media has been way more open and honest. The conservative, scientifically-inclined folks who supply the local forecasting information in England are issuing stories such as the one below. It's time for us to catch up...

+ Independent Digital (UK): "Reaping the whirlwind"

REAPING THE WHIRLWIND
Extreme weather prompts unprecedented global warming alert
03 July 2003

In an astonishing announcement on global warming and extreme weather,
the World Meteorological Organisation signalled last night that the
world's weather is going haywire.

In a startling report, the WMO, which normally produces detailed
scientific reports and staid statistics at the year's end, highlighted
record extremes in weather and climate occurring all over the world in
recent weeks, from Switzerland's hottest-ever June to a record month
for tornadoes in the United States - and linked them to climate
change.

The unprecedented warning takes its force and significance from the
fact that it is not coming from Greenpeace or Friends of the Earth,
but from an impeccably respected UN organisation that is not given to
hyperbole (though environmentalists will seize on it to claim that the
direst warnings of climate change are being borne out).

The Geneva-based body, to which the weather services of 185 countries
contribute, takes the view that events this year in Europe, America
and Asia are so remarkable that the world needs to be made aware of it
immediately.

The extreme weather it documents, such as record high and low
temperatures, record rainfall and record storms in different parts of
the world, is consistent with predictions of global warming.
Supercomputer models show that, as the atmosphere warms, the climate
not only becomes hotter but much more unstable. "Recent scientific
assessments indicate that, as the global temperatures continue to warm
due to climate change, the number and intensity of extreme events
might increase," the WMO said, giving a striking series of examples.

In southern France, record temperatures were recorded in June, rising
above 40C in places - temperatures of 5C to 7C above the average.

In Switzerland, it was the hottest June in at least 250 years,
environmental historians said. In Geneva, since 29 May, daytime
temperatures have not fallen below 25C, making it the hottest June
recorded.

In the United States, there were 562 May tornadoes, which caused 41
deaths. This set a record for any month. The previous record was 399
in June 1992.

In India, this year's pre-monsoon heatwave brought peak temperatures
of 45C - 2C to 5C above the norm. At least 1,400 people died in India
due to the hot weather. In Sri Lanka, heavy rainfall from Tropical
Cyclone 01B exacerbated wet conditions, resulting in flooding and
landslides and killing at least 300 people. The infrastructure and
economy of south-west Sri Lanka was heavily damaged. A reduction of
20-30 per cent is expected in the output of low-grown tea in the next
three months.

Last month was also the hottest in England and Wales since 1976, with
average temperatures of 16C. The WMO said: "These record extreme
events (high temperatures, low temperatures and high rainfall amounts
and droughts) all go into calculating the monthly and annual averages,
which, for temperatures, have been gradually increasing over the past
100 years.

"New record extreme events occur every year somewhere in the globe,
but in recent years the number of such extremes have been increasing.

"According to recent climate-change scientific assessment reports of
the joint WMO/United Nations Environmental Programme Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change, the global average surface temperature has
increased since 1861. Over the 20th century the increase has been
around 0.6C.

"New analyses of proxy data for the northern hemisphere indicate that
the increase in temperature in the 20th century is likely to have been
the largest in any century during the past 1,000 years."

While the trend towards warmer temperatures has been uneven over the
past century, the trend since 1976 is roughly three times that for the
whole period.

Global average land and sea surface temperatures in May 2003 were the
second highest since records began in 1880. Considering land
temperatures only, last May was the warmest on record.

It is possible that 2003 will be the hottest year ever recorded. The
10 hottest years in the 143-year-old global temperature record have
now all been since 1990, with the three hottest being 1998, 2002 and
2001.

The unstable world of climate change has long been a prediction. Now,
the WMO says, it is a reality.

(c) 2001 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd

Online source:
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/environment/story.jsp?story=421166

10:25 PM | Link |   

I had an op/ed in the New York Daily News a couple of days ago on the topic of banning audible car alarms in New York City. If you're interested, here it is. A fellow from the consumer electronics industry wrote a counterpoint . I'd be curious to hear what people think about the merits of our arguments and of the issue in general.

Here's the text of my piece:

New York Daily News, July 8, 2003
Point/Counterpoint
Ban car alarms? They disrupt life & don't work

Audible car alarms are Public Enemy No. 1 for quality of life in this city. With the City Council considering legislation to ban their sale and installation, the time has come to get rid of these infuriating and useless devices.

New York is sick of paying the car alarm noise tax. In a Transportation Alternatives survey of 850 New Yorkers, 91% said car alarms destroy quality of life. The NYPD's Quality of Life Hotline tells the same story. In 2001, 83% of the 97,000 calls were noise complaints, with car alarms consistently near the top of the list.

Transportation Alternatives found that only 5% of New Yorkers had ever responded to a car alarm as if it were a theft. Yet, 60% have called the police or taken action against alarm noise itself. Apparently, car alarms are a more pressing and costly crime problem than the thieves they are meant to deter.

Anyone who has been awakened by blaring alarms set off by a passing sanitation truck knows the high cost of this technology in a crowded city. The benefits, however, are nonexistent. Car alarms simply do not work.

A Columbia University study found that 99% of alarms are false. Car thieves know this, and most can disarm an alarm in a matter of seconds anyway. The insurance industry is wising up. In an analysis of 73 million vehicles, the Highway Loss Data Institute concluded that cars with alarms "show no overall reduction in theft losses" compared to cars without alarms. The only real benefit is a meager $19-a-year average insurance discount. Some auto insurers no longer offer even this.

With a wide variety of new silent security systems on the market, a ban on car alarms is totally feasible. Inexpensive passive immobilizer systems that put a computer chip in the ignition key are becoming standard. In the 1990s, they reduced theft on Ford Mustangs by 77%. Personal car alarm pagers alert a car's owner rather than the entire neighborhood. Global positioning systems like Lojack often lead police to chop shops, reducing crime for everyone. Even a simple $30 brake lock does more to deter theft than an audible alarm.

Every few years, new car alarm legislation comes before the Council. Without fail, the companies that make hundreds of millions of dollars by putting products called Viper, Cobra and Hellfire on our neighborhood streets fly in and make empty promises about raising standards and providing new technologies. They warn that banning alarms will take us back to the grand theft auto days of the late '80s. They offer scare tactics, not facts.

Banning alarms is a win for everyone but the car thieves. Car owners will switch to security systems that actually work. Their vehicles will be better protected and their insurance discounts will increase. Likewise, the law will be a boon for local dealers who sell and install the new systems. Most important, New Yorkers finally will stop losing sleep over automobile security.



12:05 PM | Link |   

We have this movie theater across the street from our apartment called Regal Entertainment Group United Artists Court Street Stadium 12. We call it "the Reej." Being in or around the Reej generally gives me a feeling of hopelessness for the long-term prospects of New Yorkers, Americans, and human beings. So, I either keep my distance from the Reej or fully prepare myself each time I am about to go in it or near it.

Like a 10-story, argyle sock looming over the historic brownstones of Brooklyn Heights, the Reej is a total abortion. It's got to be one of the ugliest and most misbegotten buildings in all of Brooklyn. The mega-developers who erected this monstrosity, slapped it together with the cheapest materials they could find. The exterior is made up of some weird type of customized vinyl-ish siding that's supposed to mimic bricks and brownstone and fit with the neighboring 19th century buildings. When the theater went up in 1998 there was all kinds of opposition to it but it was hopeless from the get-go. The developer who built the Reej owns this part of Brooklyn and no elected official was going to stand in the way of economic development on what had been a nasty vacant lot for many years.

If there's a big blockbuster in town crowds begin queuing up in front of the Reej before 10:00am, with the edgy, slightly narcotized anticipation of homeless people waiting in a soup kitchen line. This morning's $10 serving was Charlie's Angels. As predicted by the NIMBYites who fought it, the Reej has turned the surrounding neighborhoods into a Cineplex parking lot. Sport Utility Monsters roll in from all parts of Brooklyn bearing couples on dates. Last night I caught myself staring at a Chevy Avalanche parked illegally across the street from our house. A 6,000 pound, plastic Tonka toy that gets about 10 m.p.g., the 'Lanche has got to be one of the ugliest and least functional cars ever to roll off the Detroit assembly lines. It's stunning that our culture has produced a set of desires (or, "a market") so demented that my neighbors are moved to acquire these expensive and destructive pieces of crap. And, on top of that, they're totally proud of their expensive and destructive pieces of crap. The bigger and uglier the better.

Once evening comes, crowds pour out onto the street at regular intervals until about 1:30am. Teenagers shout, car alarms are activated, doors slam, engines rev, and stereos blast. It's a little bit brutal but doesn't bug me too much. The car alarm thing is particularly amazing. There is a vast number of motorists in Brooklyn whose 125 dB car alarms blast every time they open their door or turn on their engine. What the fuck is wrong with these people? I mean, forget about urban civility and bugging your neighbors. Why would you yourself want to live with that? Why wouldn't you try to figure out how to fix it? I'm guessing that it actually makes people feel secure to hear their Viper, Cobra or Hellfire automobile security system wailing every time they activate their vehicle. Or car alarms and stereos are some sort of modern day mating call and the louder they are, the better. At any rate, the total dementia of New York City car culture is fully on display outside the Reej.

That being said, if we're going to see a Hollywood blockbuster, we generally see it at the Reej. We don't have a functioning television in our house, so the gigantic vinyl building on the corner has become our own personal idiot box. Last night we saw The Hulk. The movie is filmed kind of beautifully but is essentially a piece of shit and not half as interesting as the Reej crowd. I once sat next to a guy with a huge, packed duffle bag on his lap. It occurred to me that the guy was either homeless or a terrorist. And even though a packed Christmas showing of The Two Towers seemed like a really ideal moment to launch a massive act of urban terror (not just the name of the movie, but the fact that an X-mas day movie in Brooklyn is packed with more Jews than synagogue on Rosh Hashana) I decided to just move seats and not get a SWAT team involved (I also decided to tell my woman that I thought there was a guy with a huge bomb in the theater but that I wasn't going to do anything about it. Needless to say, she didn't enjoy The Two Towers).

At the Reej, people smoke blunts and drink beer. People answer their cell phones in the middle of the movie. The conversation usually goes something like, "I'm in a movie call back later." Then louder, "I said I'm in a movie, I can't talk right now..." You get a lot of conversationalists at the Reej, people who seem to have come for a nice, air-conditioned spot to chat with friends. Last night I had a prominent screen-talker and seat-kicker directly behind me. Every so often he'd notify the audience that "My man Hulk's gonna fuck up that cracker." Or "Shiiiiit, here come the federales." And "Now for the coop de graw [a.k.a. coup de grace]." Amazingly, the woman next to the screen-talker got pissed at the bag-rustling screen-talker directly behind them. Even more amazing, all of these idiots were 35-years and older. They weren't rowdy teenagers. These were their stupid parents. In fact, the talkers had kids with them and the kids seemed quiet in that embarrassed sort of way. So, maybe there is hope yet, at the Reej.


2:02 PM | Link |   

Brooklyn is engulfed in a dense white haze. That is, when it's not gray and raining. The white haze and gray rain conditions have been going on for weeks now. Months, actually. It's sort of hard to go outside these days, especially when that inevitably involves walking through either the diesel clouds of Court Street or the honking gauntlet of Clinton. It doesn't really feel like air out there. It's some other mixture of gases vaguely related to air. Granted, New York City summers will always get to you. That's a fact. But that's not what's getting to me this year. Relatively speaking I don't mind heat, humidity and sweaty shirts. What's making it somewhat opressive and intolerable this year is the lack of Spring.

New York City, when I first moved here (not very long ago in geological time), used to get these amazing crisp Spring days. These days came in April and May, and there were always at least a few of them. On these days the skies were blue, and the quality of light, sharp and vivid. The clouds were puffy and the air had a fragrant, green bite to it. These were the days between the rainy part of Spring and the hazy, humid, urine-scented New York City summer to come.

Did we have a single one of these days this Spring? Nope. Not that I recall. And I think that's what's making the impending NYC summer tough to stomach this go-round.

12:32 AM | Link |